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Groundhog Day

Celebrate this unlikely oracle, this ball of fat and fur, whom we so mysteriously endow with the power to predict spring. Let’s hear it for the improbable heroes who, frightened at their own shadows, nonetheless unwittingly work miracles. Why shouldn’t we believe this peculiar rodent holds power over sun and seasons in his stubby paw? Who says that God is all grandeur and glory? Unnoticed in the earth, worms are busily, brainlessly, tilling the soil. Field mice, all unthinking, have scattered seeds that will take root and grow. Grape hyacinths, against all reason, have been holding up green shoots beneath

February 2, 2007

Quickening

Listen. Can you hear it? Can you hear the gentle quickening beneath the earth? Tomorrow on February 2nd is the feast of Imbolc, Candlemas, the feast of St. Bridget, and Groundhog Day. It is a cross-quarter day meaning it is the midway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox. The sun marks the four Quarter Days of the year (the Solstices and Equinoxes) and the midpoints are the cross-quarter days. In some cultures this is the official beginning of spring. As the days slowly lengthen and the sun makes her way higher in the sky, the ground beneath our

February 1, 2007

Rise Up Rooted

Book of Hours II, 16 How surely gravity’s law, strong as an ocean current, takes hold of even the strongest thing and pulls it toward the heart of the world. Each thing – each stone, blossom, child – is held in place. Only we, in our arrogance, push out beyond what we belong to for some empty freedom. If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees. Instead we entangle ourselves in knots of our own making and struggle, lonely and confused. So, like children, we begin again to learn from the things, because they

January 29, 2007

Essential Flow

I shared a couple of months ago dreams I was having about playing the cello. After my third dream in about a month, I woke up and went for a walk to pray with the images that kept repeating themselves to me to pay attenton. Toward the end of my walk I went by Cornish college and was amazed to find a woman playing the cello outdoors on their lawn. This was synchronicity at work. I have continued to pray with that image, letting itself play within me. Then, a couple of weeks ago I received some feedback on the lectio

January 28, 2007

Body-Words of Love

I am fashioned as a galaxy, Not as a solid substance but a mesh Of atoms in their far complexity Forming the pattern of my bone and flesh. Small solar systems are my eyes, Muscle and sinew are composed of air. Like comets flashing through the evening skies My blood runs, ordered, arrogant, and fair. Ten lifetimes distant is the nearest star, And yet within my body, firm as wood, Proton and electron separate are. Bone is more fluid than my coursing blood. What plan had God, so strict and empassioned When He an island universe my body fashioned? -Madeleine

January 25, 2007

Bare Branches

Top two photos taken at Greenlake in Seattle, bottom four on Granville Island in Vancouver I find winter trees achingly beautiful, even more so this winter than any previous one I can remember. I see the black branches spread across the darkening sky and my heart swells with longing, as though there is something in the meeting of essence and horizon that speaks to a part of me that has gone unnamed thus far. Only questions rise up asking me to live into them: What is my essence? When everything is stripped away, who am I beneath all the roles

January 22, 2007

Zen of Housework

Rachel at Swandive left me my 1000th comment and so is my drawing winner! Another wonderful poem about finding the sacred in the most ordinary: The Zen of Housework I look over my own shoulder down my arms to where they disappear under water into hands inside pink rubber gloves moiling among dinner dishes. My hands lift a wine glass, holding it by the stem and under the bowl. It breaks the surface like a chalice rising from a medieval lake. Full of the grey wine of domesticity, the glass floats to the level of my eyes. Behind it, through

January 21, 2007

Sacredness of All Things

I love poetry that speaks of the holiness of the ordinary, the sacredness of all things. We make artificial divisions between sacred and secular, between what is worthy of our awe and gratitude and what is not. This is one of the elements I love most about Benedictine spirituality. In the Rule, Benedict wrote that “all utensils and goods of the monastery” are to be treated as “sacred vessels of the altar.” (RB 31:10-11) Esther DeWaal writes that Benedictine life “simply consists in doing the ordinary things of daily life carefully and lovingly, with the attention and reverence that can

January 18, 2007

New Article on Spirituality and the Arts

In the fall the editor of the UCLA Spirituality and Higher Education Newsletter found my website through a search and asked me to write an article for their upcoming issue on spirituality and artistic expression. The article is titled “The Relationship Between Spirituality and Artistic Expression: Cultivating the Capacity for Imagining” and you can find it here. To the left of the article are links to a couple of other articles you may be interested in as well. The article on “The Empowering of Art and Spirituality” is written by Marilyn Russell, a Native American woman and scholar. You can

January 17, 2007

Loving Into Wholeness

It has been just over a week now since Tune has come into our life. If you had told me ten days ago that I would now be completely smitten with a nearly ten-year-old dog I would have been very surprised. These are the things that can happen when you allow the Spirit to lead and open your heart to hidden treasure. It feels especially significant to me that we first met her on the feast of Epiphany for she has been a great gift. We were going to wait until after our big trip this summer to adopt

January 16, 2007

Visit the Abbey of the Arts online retreat platform to access your programs:

Reflections

Filter

Groundhog Day

Quickening

Rise Up Rooted

Essential Flow

Body-Words of Love

Bare Branches

Zen of Housework

Sacredness of All Things

New Article on Spirituality and the Arts

Loving Into Wholeness

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