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

Invitation to Poetry: Soul Friend

anam cara - lynn

Welcome to Poetry Party #75! (Does that make it our diamond jubilee?)

button-poetryI select an image (*photo above by Lynn Weekes
Karegeannes
) and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your own poem. Scroll down and add it in the comments section below or join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group and post there.

Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog (if you have one), Facebook, or Twitter, and encourage others to come join the party!  (If you repost the photo, please make sure to include the credit link below it and link back to this post inviting others to join us).

We began this month with a  Community Lectio Divina practice with wisdom from St. Brigid about having a soul friend and followed up with our Photo Party on the same theme. (You are most welcome to still participate).  We continue this theme in our Poetry Party this month.

Brigid’s words have sparked some great conversation at our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group. We can not go this journey alone, but having a soul friend does not necessarily mean having a spiritual director, in terms of someone formally trained for this ministry. Having a soul friend means someone in your life with whom you can share the deep desires and struggles of your heart. The ego can be very deceiving and having another person helps us to always return to the voice of the soul. Sometimes that presence is offered through nature or a creature companion. The photo above, shared by fellow monk in the world Lynn Weekes Karegeannes at this month’s Photo Party, shimmers with the sacredness of connection and loving presence between people who share a kinship of the soul.

You can post your poem either in the comment section below*or you can join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group (with more than 1200 members!) and post there.

*Note: If this is your first time posting, or includes a link, your comment will need to be moderated before it appears. This is to prevent spam and should be approved within 24 hours.

You might also enjoy

Monk in the World Guest Post: Mary Camille Thomas

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Mary Camille Thomas’s reflection “Beholding God’s Sanctuary.” My Grandma Sammie knew many psalms by heart and could quote them chapter and verse.

Read More »

Monk in the World Guest Post: Therese Taylor-Stinson

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Wisdom Council member and Centering Prayer leader Therese Taylor-Stinson’s reflection Silence and the Oppressed. This article was originally published on NextChurch.net and

Read More »

13 Responses

  1. To my Immanuel Prayer Guide and therapist, Kati

    I cannot do life alone when holy One rises strong and round
    to guide me through past darkest days and nights.
    Help me.
    Together we stare, nay, swallow
    Great Guide at Night and continue the journey,
    walking right off the edge of the earth
    held.
    The orange light shifts constantly, blinding bright to
    shadow soft
    Incarnating my infant, two, and three year old in trinity:
    You, me, and He.

  2. Soul Friend

    I have searched for you countless eons
    As night after night closes the curtains on another day
    While the seeker lives within, its own mortality lit by a watchful eye.

    I have traveled through life whispering your name
    Sometimes wondering if you exist or are already at my side
    Lingering at the peripheral of each of my senses.

    There are soul mates and soul sisters, companionships true
    Yet there is something that burns a low flame in my soul
    A light left on for the prodigal one, the all-knowing spark.

    Who will take my hand, lift me into the mirror of time
    A light shimmering with an indescribable joy
    And a nod affirming my birthright of immortality.

    We will sit under a golden moon, hand in hand,
    And all my questions will be understood by another
    Who will answer as soul friend with a wordless smile.

  3. Anam Cara

    Far into the mountain wilderness
    Days within the ancient woods
    Miles from the end of paved roads
    Following the meandering path left by others
    Earlier travelers, long gone, unknown
    Except the little line marked through the flagstone,
    Along the river, through the meadow,
    To the edge of moss banked lakes

    Cool breezes dash through the scrubby pine
    Leaving us as quickly as they arrived
    Looking for a place to settle, to call home
    Here the cut-throats sit and wait
    Efforts and motions planned/reserved/calculated
    Simple Lore-Monsters hidden from view
    Older and larger than the extremes would suggest
    Beings, just being

    We stand at the edge of the bottomless lake
    Filled with frigid waters that shrink our manhood
    Here we ply our cunning, casting all we have
    To the giants in the blue lagoon
    Desperate to tease them with our modern wares
    Purchased with monies earned running an old race
    Time sold for discount trinkets and plastic beads
    To see if they will rise, strike, then sizzle in our pan

    Night falls quickly behind the next stony ridge
    Powdered soup, crackers and some jerked beef
    Leviathan and kin poke the icy depths, crunching larvae- unmolested
    A misty fog rolls between stunted-twisted trees
    We sit around the small flames of burning branches and deadfall
    Staring, brooding, shoving big sticks at the little coals
    Merged into one- Mist, Fire, Darkness,Tree,Rock,Trail, Men
    Silence everywhere but for the howling Scavengers

    Just out of site they yelp and wail, calling, desiring
    Quickly they thunder towards our circle
    Just before breaking into the light they turn to either side
    Surrounding from every direction, then off into the night
    The yearning calls, whimpers, and howls continue
    Long into the ether of the dreams of men…
    High above us a singular voice breaks the air
    The deeper, dreader, mature call of the Wolf
    Nearly exposed for the small creatures they truly are
    Muzzled in humility before their King
    Over the hard dark hills of Tomorrow’s climb
    Out beyond field glass, in holes beneath granite boulders they hide
    The Scavengers return to the unknowable, unsearchable past
    Field mouse beware, brown hare quiver and ptarmigan shake they come for you,
    Without malice or forethought, synapses snap, jaws close on softer flesh, merge to one
    Beings, just being

    Near the middle hour of stoking the burning bush
    One reveals and offers sweet brown bread, Cuban, hand rolled
    Other brings forth the expressed blood of Italian vines
    Together, communion, they inhale the rich incense from burning censors
    Cleansing the tongue as the ember approaches their lips, lung-filled peace
    Washing their minds submersing their hearts with Freedom’s cup
    One speaks of his fear of approaching death, entering the eternal night
    Other reveals offenses endured, opportunities missed, lost trails

    Long into the cold dark night they take in the host and blood
    Drink deep draughts of the rich, inky darkness of soul
    Inhale fully on each draw from the burning bitter herbs
    Chiseled Saltwater stained mountain facades glowing
    Steel rubbing against steel against flint and obsidian cliffs
    Before the warm friendship fire far from beginnings or ends
    A wolf comes and sits at Light’s edge, watching, waiting
    Beings just being

    —Kevin Peterson

    1. Kevin,

      Sometimes mystery is put into words so easily that an experience only felt suddenly comes to life and recognizes itself. Thats what your poem does for me!

      Many, many thanks for sharing this….I feel as though I’m sitting at the warm friendship fire again, long before it ended.

      Deirdre

  4. Soul Friend

    The telephone rings
    Memories of many years
    My soul friend calling.

    True friends growing up
    Sharing secrets; doing pranks
    Living life each day.

    Professional lives
    Husbands, children, life expands
    Soul friends together.

    Age, distance and death
    Spirituality grows
    My soul friend calling.

    1. Dear Carolyn,

      I love your haiku….so few words to say so much.
      It touches my soul

      Deep gratitude and love,

      Deirdre

  5. Cosmic Birther

    Womb of White Buffalo Woman
    Love swirls and twirls in DNA strands
    Calls forth galaxies
    And an earth dance of magnificence
    Breathing Life, shimmering sound
    Touching us with roar and whisper
    Breeze and whirlwind
    Drought and polar vortex
    Hurt Locker and Davey Locker
    Death and leaping whales
    Ocean depths to shooting stars
    Womb to tomb to ray of Glory
    O Butterfly, Golden Light of the Golden drum
    Beautiful Light of the Risen One
    In You I find my peace
    Eye has not seen nor ear heard
    Bearer of the Spirit’s Voice

  6. Alone in the Rimming Moon

    Sometimes we sit, alone
    in the rimming moon. Our sighs move upward,
    quelling cares that rise like smoke and buffeting our hands
    with the bones of night.

    Sometimes we sit, alone
    in the startling dusk. Light-profusions
    scamper like wayward souls and tickle our bones
    with tales of mourning love.

    Sometimes we sit, alone
    in the meddling dawn. Mid-sentence laughing
    from brooklet stars too shy for dancing
    when noon arrives, shirtless and boasting.

    Sometimes we sit, alone,
    together in maudlin midnight’s tepid kiss, too quickly
    passing to pass from view without leaving
    her mark of satisfied leavings.

    Sometimes we sit, alone
    in the rimming moon. We compare eyes
    and glance knowingly beyond
    what they normally see: the other.

    1. These phrase…”when noon arrives shirtless and boasting” and “light profusions scamper like wayward souls”. delight me to the core…..I’m smiling as I type, marvelling at how the world can reach out through a poem to “enlighten” me and show me new ways of perceiving. Many, many thanks!

  7. To a Friend

    Into the emptiness
    into the loneliness
    into the hollow stillness
    came at first your quiet breath
    becoming a gentle wind
    then a raging gale
    filling my chest
    invading my heart
    exploding in love.
    I am at once able,
    awakened, wiser, taller
    yet humbled to my knees
    touched by God’s gift,
    thanking Him for you.

    1. This is beautiful ~ lovely to have as a ‘first poem’ in this series, giving breath, perhaps to the rest of us…..