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Visual Meditation: “I want what I love to continue to live”

    When I die, I want your hands on my eyes: I want the light and wheat of your beloved hands to pass their freshness over me once more: I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny. I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep. I want your ears still to hear the wind, I want you to sniff the sea’s aroma that we loved together, to continue to walk on the sand we walk on. I want what I love to continue to live, and you whom I love and sang above everything

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Sacred Artist Interview: Milton Brasher-Cunningham

I first met Milton Brasher-Cunningham through the RevGalBlogPals, a blog ring for people who support the leadership of women in Christian communities.  I was drawn to his blog ‘don’t eat alone‘ because it’s primarily about one of my favorite topics — food and the way food can be meaningful and sacred.  Milton also writes about social justice, about discernment, about poetry, many of the things I feel passionate about as well.  Then recently I got an unexpected gift in the mail from him — a copy of his new book Seven Summers at the Beach, a delightful collection of poetry and recipes from

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Invitation to Poetry: Celebrate the Gifts of Being

Poetry Party Number Nineteen! I select an image and suggest a title and invite you to respond with your poems, words, reflections, quotes, song lyrics, etc. Leave them in the comments or email me and I’ll add them to the body of the post as they come in along with a link back to your blog if you have one (not required to participate!) Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog and encourage others to come join the party! (a blog is definitely not required to participate!) The photo below

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Sacred Artist Interview: Trish Bruxvoort Colligan

I first met Trish through blogging almost two years ago and discovered her amazing gift of music.  I love music I can use on retreats and in prayer experiences and hers is beautiful and very accessible.  Every time I play one of her songs at a gathering, everyone wants to know the name of the artist.  She records some music solo and some with her husband Richard, their website is River’s Voice and you can listen to samples of songs there.  Just a few of my favorites for use in retreat settings (if you visit the website click on the album title):

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Sounds of the Hidden Mysteries

“Music arouses the sluggish soul to watchfulness. It has power to soften even hard hearts, and by rendering hearts moist it ushers in the Holy Spirit. Through the power of hearing, God opens to human beings all the glorious sounds of the hidden mysteries and of the choirs of angels by whom God is praised over and over again.” -Hildegard of Bingen 1098-1179 “I am not satisfied with him who despises music, as all fanatics do; for music is an endowment and a gift of God, not a gift of men . . . I place music next to theology

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Visual Meditation: Sleeping Under the Earth

I know the truth – give up all other truths! No need for people anywhere on earth to struggle. Look – it is evening, look, it is nearly night: what do you speak of, poets, lovers, generals? The wind is level now, the earth is wet with dew, the storm of stars in the sky will turn to quiet. And soon all of us will sleep under the earth, we who never let each other sleep above it. -Marina Tsvetaeva (poem found at Anchors and Masts) (Photos taken at 9 Acre Farm in Arlington, WA where this week’s Poetry Party took

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Sacred Artist Interview: Larkin Jean Van Horn

I first discovered the quilting art of Larkin Van Horn through the Grunewald Guild where she will be teaching a summer class on Fabric Dyeing.  I visited her website and was enchanted by her fabric art, especially her series of journal quilts.  Not being inclined toward quilting myself, I was taken with the idea of creating a quilt series as an ongoing visual journal much like the way I will use paint, ink, and photos in my own visual journal work.   I contacted her about using one of her quilts in the most recent issue of Presence, and then followed up

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Invitation to Poetry: and a donkey shall lead them

This is our 18th Poetry Party! I select an image and suggest a title and invite you to respond with your poems, words, reflections, quotes, song lyrics, etc. Leave them in the comments or email me and I’ll add them to the body of the post as they come in along with a link back to your blog if you have one (not required to participate!) I’ll add your contributions all week and then I will draw a name at random on Saturday morning from everyone who participates and will send the winner their choice of zine. The image below

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Visual Meditation: Cloisters (Part Two)

God’s Grief Great parent who must have started out with such high hopes. What magnitude of suffering, the immensity of guilt, the staggering despair. A mind the size of the sun, burning with longing, a heart huge as a gray whale breaching, streaming seawater against the pale sky. Man-god or beast god god that breathes in every pleated leaf, throat sac of frog, pin feather and shaft- god of plutonium and penicillin, drunk sleeping on the subway grate, god of Joan of Arc, god of Crazy Horse Lady Day, bringing us to our knees, god of Houdini with hands like

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Abbey Bookshelf: A Dog’s Life

I have loved animals since infancy.  Whereas most children’s first words are “mama” or “dada” I’ve been told many times, mine was clearly “doggie.”  My father used to tell me again and again of the time we went to the zoo when I first learned to talk and pointed at the elephant and squealed “doggie!’  My first toy was a Snoopy doll that I dragged with me everywhere for years until its fur had worn off and its head had to be sewn back on.  At about age five I was convinced I would one day marry Snoopy. Growing up

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