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Advent Practices: Water’s Wisdom (Week Three)

This is the third reflection in a weely series I am writing for Patheos on practices for Advent to nurture our intimacy with creation: The bass and trout hiding in the deep pools of the river are canonized by their beauty and their strength. The lakes hidden among the hills are saints, and the sea too is a saint who praises God without interruption in her majestic dance. ~ Thomas Merton For this third week of Advent I invite you to consider the element of water as an inspiration for your prayer and a way to grow in intimacy with creation.

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Advent Practices: Following the Fire (Week Two)

This is the second reflection in a weely series I am writing for Patheos on practices for Advent to nurture our intimacy with creation: Every being is praising God The fire has its flame and praises God. The wind blows the flame and praises God. In the voice we hear the word which praises God. And the word, when heard, praises God. So all of creation is a song of praise to God.   -Hildegard of Bingen In the first week of our Advent series we focused on the scriptural image of awakening and the gift of breath as our connection

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Advent Practices: Tending to Creation (Week One)

For the season of Advent I will be offering a weekly column at Patheos on practices for Advent to nurture our intimacy with creation: As we enter these four weeks of Advent, we cross into a holy time when the scriptures are filled with images of expectancy as we await the coming of a God who enters into the heart of this world. I invite you during these next four weeks to embrace this season as a time to tend to your relationship to creation. As we anticipate the way holiness becomes enfleshed, we are called to reflect on the

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Winter Wisdom

 A major obstacle to creativity is wanting to be in the peak season of growth and generation at all times . . . but if we see the soul’s journey as cyclical, like the seasons. . . then we can accept the reality that periods of despair or fallowness are like winter – a resting time that offers us a period of creative hibernation, purification, and regeneration that prepare us for the births of spring. -Linda Leonard, from Call to Create : Celebrating Acts of Imagination One of the greatest gifts of the seasons to me as a writer and

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Luminous Wisdom of Night

The darkness embraces everything, It lets me imagine a great presence stirring beside me. I believe in the night. -Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours The Christian feasts of All Saints and All Souls on November 1st and 2nd honor the profound legacy of wisdom our ancestors have left to us and continue to offer. In some denominations, we celebrate and honor the dead for the whole month of November. In the Northern hemisphere the world is entering the dark half of the year. The ancient Celtic people believed this time was a thin space, where heaven and earth whispered to

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Embraced by the Divine Mother

After writing this post yesterday morning about honoring the anniversary of my mother’s death I stepped into the day releasing expectations of what the hours ahead would hold and opened myself to how my mother might whisper to me across worlds.  I arrived at my yoga class ten minutes early as is my habit to settle into a few moments of silence to begin this sacred time of entering the body’s wisdom.  As I moved into the room there was an ethereal woman’s voice singing.  Another student asked the teacher what music this was.  “Hymns to the Divine Mother” she replied. I smiled and let the rise

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Re-membering

I practice yoga at a beautiful place, it is a non-profit studio in Seattle thoroughly committed to making yoga accessible for everyone.  They do amazing work bringing yoga to persons dying of AIDS, to veterans and refugees, to persons with disabilities.  They also are wonderful at integrating yoga philosophy into their regular classes.  Each month has a specific theme and instructors talk a bit about it at the start of class and then weave it throughout our practice together.  I find that the principles of yoga consistently deepen my practice of Christian contemplative and monastic spirituality, opening new doors for me into the

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“Surge like an ocean, don’t scatter yourself like a storm”

Search the Darkness Sit with your friends, don’t go back to sleep. Don’t sink like a fish to the bottom of the sea. Surge like an ocean, don’t scatter yourself like a storm. Life’s waters flow from darkness. Search the darkness, don’t run from it. Night travelers are full of light, and you are too: don’t leave this companionship. Be a wakeful candle in a golden dish, don’t slip into the dirt like quicksilver. The moon appears for night travelers, be watchful when the moon is full. -Rumi We are moving toward the dark half of the year, and unlike

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Water, Wind, Earth, & Fire is a “Best Spiritual Book”!

I was very honored to find out yesterday that Water, Wind, Earth, & Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements was included on Spirituality and Practice’s list of Best Spiritual Books of 2010 (scroll down to Nature category).  Their website says: Every year from the more than 300 books we review on this website, we choose 50 “best spiritual books.” These are the titles that have most impressed and inspired us, and since we only review books that we want to recommend to you for your spiritual journey, this selection actually represents the best of the best. Our full

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