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Abbess love notes

A Journey of Release for Lent ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I have been in a long season of release. Ongoing health issues can bring clarity over what is most important in a given season of life. My word for the year is distillation and it is providing a compass for how I discern what to take on and what to let go of.  While there has been some clearing out of closets and donations to the charity shop, most of what I am releasing are the old patterns and ways of being that deplete me and obstruct my full access to the divine image carved

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Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Diane Morris Jones

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Diane Morris Jones’ reflection on being a bridge builder. Am I a bridge builder or a wedge driver in my relationships? The time and energy of a reflective process of distinguishing between the two can be insightful. Discerning whether we are a bridge builder or a wedge driver—in our thoughts, in our feelings, in our behaviors—is an awareness practice that invites us to open our hearts and look closely at our intentions.  I so desire to have

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Prayer Cycle

Pray with Us! (Prayer Cycle Daily) – Birthing the Holy

We now have four weeks of morning and evening prayer for you in audio podcast form (the video podcasts for Birthing the Holy and The Soul of a Pilgrim will be coming later in 2023). We invite you to pray in community with us. Each week will rotate through the four prayer cycles and we will provide the link to the featured one. If you subscribe to our daily emails, the links for each day’s prayer will be contained in those.  This week we will pray with Birthing the Holy Prayer Cycle. We being today with Day 1: Queen of

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Abbess love notes

Exploring Our True Hungers ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, John Cassian, one of the early theologians in the Christian church, writes about what he calls the three renunciations. In her book Thoughts Matter, Mary Margaret Funk describes his teaching:  “First, we must renounce our former way of life and move closer to our heart’s desire, toward the interior life. Second, we must do the inner work (of asceticism) by renouncing our mindless thoughts.…Third, and finally, we must renounce our own images of God so that we can enter into contemplation of God as God.” Renunciations are a kind of fast. They are an intentional giving

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Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Sue Schuerman

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Sue Schuerman’s reflection “Language of the Land.” My earliest companion was the natural world. Ocean, sand, orange trees, seashells, sea gulls, and chameleons—all spoke to me in a language that I didn’t understand at the time. Sixty years later I’m just beginning to comprehend the wisdom these natural teachers have to offer. Under the dappled shade of orange trees, behind my grandparents’ home, where I played as a child, I had a Place. Tucked in behind the leaves

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Abbess love notes

A Different Kind of Fast ~ A Love Note from your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Lent is a six-and-a-half-week liturgical season in the Christian year which precedes the Feast of Easter Sunday.  Beginning with Ash Wednesday when people are marked with ashes as a symbol of our humility and desire to be stripped of anything extraneous in our lives to move into a more intimate relationship with the divine. The season takes its inspiration from Jesus’ retreat to the desert for forty days before he began his public ministry. He sets down the foundation for fasting as an important preparation for the Easter season to come. Lent is a time of

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Monk in the World

Pray with Us! (Prayer Cycle Daily) – Monk in the World

We now have four weeks of morning and evening prayer for you in audio podcast form (the video podcasts for Birthing the Holy and The Soul of a Pilgrim will be coming later in 2023). We invite you to pray in community with us. Each week will rotate through the four prayer cycles and we will provide the link to the featured one. If you subscribe to our daily emails, the links for each day’s prayer will be contained in those.  This week will pray with Monk in the World Prayer Cycle. We being today with Day 1 Silence and

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Tea with the Abbess

First Friday Tea with the Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I so enjoyed our first Tea with the Abbess session. Since I can’t pour you a cup of tea myself I led a brief meditation for Imbolc instead. Then I shared some of our programs for February and answered a lot of great questions. Such a joyful time with our wonderful community. Grateful to the more than 100 dancing monks who showed up live. We have a number of resources to support you in your contemplative journey including: February Lift Every Voice Book Club –Then They Came for Mine: Healing from Racial Trauma and Violence by

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Monk in the World: Michael Moore

I am delighted to share another beautiful selection to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Michael Moore’s reflection “Finding Hope on the Threshold.” When I was asked to contribute a Monk in the World guest post, I was not exactly sure what direction the post would take. I looked back at some of my earlier posts for the Abbey and was noticed how what was going on in my life at the time when I was writing informed my post. The last post that I wrote was written in the middle of

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Abbess love notes

Some Updates from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, This past Monday our Wisdom Council gathered together online for our semi-annual time of reflection, inspiration, and planning. We are extraordinarily blessed with a group of 14 members who are heart-centered, contemplative leaders committed to helping Abbey of the Arts continue to flourish and serve this community in challenging times.  We first created the Wisdom Council several years ago when John and I realized we wanted more support for what was emerging, we wanted it to be a truly collaborative vision. While we are not a registered charity or non-profit structure, primarily because we went that path

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