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A Prayer of Encircling with the Love of Thousands

Thank you again for all the kindness on my health post the other day. I was really touched and there is something so healing about being seen and loved in the midst of vulnerability. I’ve had more health struggles even in the days since I posted, so am grateful to be lifted up by your prayers and blessings. We are starting our Love of Thousands companion retreat on Monday (a 14 week journey and deep dive through my book) so I was pondering the many ways I call upon the invisible ones and sacred presences for healing. Certainly there is

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Give me a word

Give Me a Word Prize Drawing Winners!

I am delighted to announce the winners of this year’s Give Me a Word prize drawing. We had over 230 responses and winners were chosen at random. Please email Melinda at dancingmonk@abbeyofthearts.com to claim your prize. May your words ripen within and guide you in the year ahead.

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Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Theresa Walker

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Theresa Walker’s reflection on love, letting go, and letting be. As a single, never-married woman there were times of loneliness in my life, especially as a young woman when I felt out of step with my peers. Yet the gifts of my beautiful life were always before me for the taking. Sometimes I had to dig deep with a spiritual director, pray, study, and read to find consolation and direction. I had freedom of movement. Where should I make my home?

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Abbess love notes

Gratitude for Dancing Monks, Earth-Bound Angels, Self-Care, and the Contemplative Path

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Every four weeks I go to the hospital to receive an infusion of a biologic medication to keep my rheumatoid arthritis under control. Each time I go I am full of gratitude at the way modern medicine has allowed me to mostly keep my mobility 32 years after being first diagnosed. My mother, who also had RA, didn’t even live this long into her illness and was in a wheelchair the last several years of her life after several joint replacement surgeries.  As many of you know, autoimmune illness is challenging. I have several chronic

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Abbess love notes

The Heart of Mysticism ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

“The Christian of the future will be a mystic, or [s]he will not exist at all.” —Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations Dearest monks and artists, In a week we begin our 14-week online companion journey through my book The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk With Us Toward Holiness. When we speak of the saints, we do not refer to people inaccessible to us and our lives, but to friends of the heart who dwell beyond the veil between worlds. They call us to our own paths of holiness.  This is an adapted excerpted from the book:  At the heart

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Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Adrianne Dyer

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Adrianne Dyer’s reflection Creator God As Artist. God has many names.  Often when I look upon nature and my surroundings, I think or find myself saying, “Wow! Look at what God has created.”  The name of God as Creator is true.  All around are things that God has created and brought into existence, including myself.  Yet God is much more than just a Creator. Creator God is also an Artist.  So who is this Artist God?  In

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Abbess love notes

New Year Blessings ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists, I pray this note finds you well and thriving as we move through the season of Christmas and this turning point of the calendar to a new year.  I have had a time of mini-sabbatical these last few weeks as my health continues to be a challenge. Rest is such a gift and I am grateful for the space to ease my fatigue and pain. As I sit in quiet moments, my heart always turns to this beautiful work I am privileged to do and to you, our beloved dancing monks, who make this work such

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Books

A Different Kind of Fast – new book for Lent!

It might be early to think about Lent, but Christine’s new book A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent will be published by Broadleaf Books on Tuesday and we are celebrating by hosting a virtual book launch on Friday. This is a free event that will include some reflections from Christine, a guided meditation, and we are delighted wisdom council member Richard Bruxvoort Colligan will be there to share music with us too. It will also be recorded if you can’t join us live. Please join us for a soulful time of sacred listening. This is an adapted excerpt

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Andrea Potos

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series. Read on for Andrea Potos’ reflection and poems on the contemplative process of poetry. My contemplative practice begins at my writing table each morning.  Spiral notebook spread open and pen nearby, I don’t start writing immediately. I read a few poems of other writers that I love, or look at art books with images that compel and inspire me. Then I close my eyes, wait for a feeling of stillness that makes space for quiet to unfold and deepen. I may also make a

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Abbess love notes

Winter Solstice Wisdom and Offerings ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Of Price and Worth Let the ordinary be in your hand; hold it open and imagine a bird landing, offering all it possesses in trust to come to you. Learn to look for the little things that weigh nothing at all, but fill the heart with such light they can never be measured. -Kenneth Steven, Seeing the Light Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,  We are delighted to be offering two programs this week to help you slow down and savor the gifts of this time of year as we wait for the tipping point of darkness to light in the

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