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Category: Abbess love notes

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Joy and Rest + Prayer Cycle Podcast Day 5

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, At Easter I published a beautifully illustrated fairy tale titled Journey to Joy and later this month over the summer solstice I will be leading a two-day mini-retreat with guest musician Te Martin.  The story is about Sophia, a writer and woman in search of physical healing as she has experienced a long bout of illness and the joy in her village has also been depleted. I want to share an excerpt from it near the beginning, after Sophia decides to has to leave the village and find the Medicine Woman:  ***** At the river marking the eastern

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Cultivating Seeds of Liberation Prayer Cycle Day 4 Audio Podcast ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, Over the past few weeks we have released the audio podcasts for the first three days of our Cultivating Seeds of Liberation Prayer Cycle. This prayer cycle is deeply rooted in our commitment to contemplative practice as a way to ground ourselves in loving action. Today we are excited to share Day 4 on the theme of Justice. Here are two excerpts from morning and evening prayer. Day 4 Morning Opening Prayer by Claudia Love Mair We come together today, O Lover and Protector of all, because we understand that all of creation is made by

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Songs of Strength and Resilience + Prayer Cycle Audio Podcast Day 3

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, We are blessed to have so many beautiful musicians in our community of dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims. This Friday, May 23rd, Wisdom Council member Te Martin will lead us in a mini-retreat on Sourcing from the Well: Songs of Strength and Resilience. Te offers this reflection on the power of song. Little bird, listen to your songThere are bones buried deep deep downThey are rising from the groundWith your song-Te Martin, “Little Bird” Under tall pines and a night sky, we sang. There were songs from the Congo, Haiti, Iran, Armenia, Palestine, and Ireland. Tears of

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Writing on the Wild Edges + Prayer Cycle Day 2 Audio Podcast ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, In pre-pandemic times, John and I used to lead pilgrimages in Ireland (and Austria and Germany) and one of my favorites was called Writing on the Wild Edges on the island of Inismor off the coast of Galway.  The retreat was inspired by the story of St. Brendan, who was known as the navigator because he went on a seven-year journey by sea to find the Island Promised to the Saints. It is a wonderful story of preparations, prayer, discoveries, going in circles, and confronting monsters along the way, before arriving at their destination, and

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Creative Joy + Prayer Cycle Day 1 Audio Podcast ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, Tomorrow Simon de Voil and I are leading our final contemplative prayer service of the season before we take a break until the fall. Our theme is Creative Joy which is the 8th principle of our Monk Manifesto: I commit to being a dancing monk, cultivating creative joy and letting my body and “heart overflow with the inexpressible delights of love.” Here is a reflection on creative joy from our Monk in the World online retreat:  Whether we dance literally or metaphorically, the dance is a symbol for forgetting our self-consciousness and letting ourselves be overcome

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New Prayer Cycle Launch and 20th anniversary celebration! ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, We are delighted to be celebrating our 19th anniversary at Abbey of the Arts and launching our 20th year of ministry and service.  For our 20th year we are planning some lovely offerings and gifts. One of these is our brand new prayer cycle Cultivating Seeds of Liberation with 7 days of morning and evening prayer center around Love, Vision, Hope, Justice, Peace, Joy, and Beauty. Each day includes an audio podcast that will be released weekly beginning next Sunday. The new prayer cycle was created with the vision of our Wisdom Council to provide a free resource that amplifies our

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Easter and the Journey to Joy! ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, Easter blessings my friends! We are in the midst of extraordinarily difficult and cruel times and it is essential we do not bypass the profound sacred grief and holy rage we feel. Easter is not about denying these realities. Easter also celebrates how in the midst of our struggles and losses, sometimes life has a way of breaking us open to something new. It calls us to hold fast to life in the midst of so much death.  Easter invites us to cling tightly to kindness and empathy in the midst of cruelty, to inhabit

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