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Happy Feast of St. Hildegard!

Underneath all the texts, all the sacred psalms and canticles, these watery varieties of sounds and silences, terrifying, mysterious, whirling and sometimes gestating and gentle must somehow be felt in the pulse, ebb, and flow of the music that sings in me. My new song must float like a feather on the breath of God. —attributed to St. Hildegard of Bingen Happy feast day of St. Hildegard!  This is an exciting year for those of us who love this fiery, powerful medieval Abbess.  She was finally canonized by the Catholic church on May 10th and on October 7th will be

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September 17, 2012

Guest post from Kayce Hughlett (Live it to Give it facilitator)

I am delighted to feature a guest post today from Kayce S. Hughlett, one of my fabulous teaching partners, and the facilitator of the upcoming Soul Care Institute class Live it to Give it: Essential Practices of Self-Care and Soul Nourishment (November 5-December 14, 2012), as well as co-teacher with Betsey Beckman of the LIVE SCI intensive Body Wisdom for Soul Care Practitoners (December 3-6, 2012 in the beautiful Pacific NW): There is a simple yet powerful question I pose to participants at the beginning (and throughout) each Live it to Give it class. What do you need right now? Upon asking

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September 16, 2012

Invitation to Poetry: Silence

Welcome to the Abbey’s Poetry Party No. 60! I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your own poem. Scroll down and add it in the comments section below. 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 this post inviting others to join us). We have started a monthly theme

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September 16, 2012

Silence as the Union of Opposites

Read my latest Seasons of the Soul column at Patheos: God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches you by means of opposites, so that you will have two wings to fly—not one. ~ Rumi Last spring my husband and I decided to embark on a midlife adventure. He quit his teaching career of twelve years, the one he was ready for a break from. Together we sold our home, car, and most of our belongings. In some ways, our plans came together very quickly—we would move to Austria for a year where I had recently acquired dual

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September 13, 2012

Monk in the World Video Meditation: Silence

A deep bow of gratitude again to everyone who participated in last week’s Photo Party. I was so moved by the visual expressions of silence I decided to create a short visual meditation. First, my apologies that I couldn’t include everyone’s photos. There were so many amazing ones.  I wanted the video to be under five minutes and have long enough to linger on each image so as to have a contemplative feeling to it, therefore I was limited in the number. I will be doing this again, so know that I hope to include more of you in the future. 

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September 9, 2012

the winner of this week’s Photo Party is. . .

. . . Gayle Sommerfeld!  Congratulations Gayle!  Send me your snail mail address and I will get a copy of Desert Mothers and Fathers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings — Annotated & Explained sent to you straight from SkyLight Paths. If you haven’t yet had a chance to stop by the Photo Party, you can see the photo pool here.  Thank you to everyone who participated, what a gift it was to receive everyone’s images and be immersed in a visual ode to silence.  This was such a delightful experience we will definitely be continuing them monthly. A week from Monday,

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September 7, 2012

This is Not Photography (by Joanna Paterson)

This is not photography. This is flower watching in sweet, soft September sunshine. This is the smell of the lavender filling my senses. This is the sound of the river rushing past, and the buzz of the bees going mad with abundance in the herbs. This is earth time before office time. This is stolen time. This is me time. This is all time falls away and nothing else matters. This is the way the light falls on the petals of the flower on this softest, sweetest September morning. This is silence. This is all love to the flower all

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September 6, 2012

What Shimmers from the Silence?

There is something spectacular about the grace of silence.   Starting this month, September, the Abbey is going to feature a monthly theme (click over to the Abbey blog to see the beautiful icon).  This month we are exploring silence, the first principle of the Monk Manifesto: “I commit to finding moments each day for silence and solitude, to make space for another voice to be heard, and to resist a culture of noise and constant stimulation.” Each month for the next seven months, we will take one of the Monk Manifesto themes for the entire month and it will shape

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September 6, 2012

Invitation to Photography: Silence

Welcome to the Abbey Photo Party! This is a (somewhat) new experiment and sort of a twist on the regular Poetry Parties.  Instead of my selecting a theme and image and inviting you to respond with words, I select a theme and invite you to respond with images. Our theme here at Abbey of the Arts for September is silence, so I invite you to reflect visually on what silence looks like for you. Since you can’t post images directly in the comments section here, I invite you to add them to the Flickr Group I have created (when you go to the

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September 2, 2012

September Theme: Silence

Here at the Abbey, we work to offer you resources to support you in contemplative practice and creative arts.  One of the core expressions of what we believe is important to nurture life as a monk in the world is the Monk Manifesto. Each month for the next seven months, we will take one of the Monk Manifesto themes for the entire month and it will shape our Poetry Parties, (the return of) Photo Parties, and other reflections. Monk Manifesto Principle #1: I commit to finding moments each day for silence and solitude, to make space for another voice to be

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September 2, 2012