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Category: Abbess love notes

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Feast of Sister Thea Bowman ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, Today is the feast day of Sister Thea Bowman, an amazing woman whose vibrancy still radiates to us today, calling us to shine our lights in a world that is often hard to bear. Even in the midst of a slow and painful death from cancer, she embodied joyful living, knowing that joy and delight must be cultivated in the midst of injustice and suffering.  These last few months we have been creating a resource and sharing it with our Sustainers Circle. For each of our dancing monk icons (created by the wonderful Marcy

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Blessing for Theotokos (God-Bearer) ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Note: Click cc turn closed captions on or off. Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, This Tuesday is the Feast of the Annunciation and I want to share an adapted excerpt from my book Birthing the Holy: Wisdom from Mary to Nurture Creativity and Renewal. My book explores 31 archetypes of Mary and this one is on the Greek image of Theotokos. During these difficult days with uncertainty and suffering everywhere, we can call upon Mary as God-bearer to remind us that we too are called to birth the holy.  Theotokos: She Who Gave Birth to God  Theotokos means God-bearer. There is a beautiful

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Sabbath as a Way of Being in the World ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, Tomorrow Simon and I will be joined by guest musician Will Boesl for our monthly Contemplative Prayer Service. Our theme this month is the 6th principle of the Monk Manifesto, Sabbath. Here is an excerpt from our Monk in the World self-study retreat. Principle 6: I commit to rhythms of rest and renewal through the regular practice of Sabbath and resist a culture of busyness that measures my worth by what I do. The work of the monk is important, but equally important are rhythms of rest and restoration. The Rule of Benedict is exquisitely balanced in this way. In a world which

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Seven Gates of Mystical Wisdom for Lent ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,  As someone with chronic illness, I became entranced when I discovered that many of the medieval women mystics also dealt with their own experiences of serious illness. Hildegard of Bingen is thought to have suffered from migraines, Clare of Assisi possibly from multiple sclerosis, Julian of Norwich was brought to the brink of death from illness, among many others.  While there are many portals to the liminal realm, including dreams and creative expression, illness remains one of the most powerful. I want to make clear from the start that there is a significant difference

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The Medial One and the Women Mystics ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, For Lent I am so excited to finally share the wisdom of seven medieval women mystics who lived through their own challenging times.  These visionaries received their insight and images from waking dreams, voices, and bodily sensations that often overcome them in the moment. Toni Wolff, who was Carl Jung’s colleague, first called this way of knowing “medial.” She described the medial woman as one who stands in the liminal realm, receiving visions for personal and collective healing. While Wolff calls this archetype the “medial woman,” I prefer to change it slightly to the “Medial One” to

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Threshold, Liminality, and the Way of the Mystic ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, For Lent this year we will be offering a retreat that focuses on 7 of the medieval women mystics, to see what wisdom they have for us. These were women who lived in their own dangerous times and many of whom struggled with experiences of illness as well.  The medieval women mystics have fascinated me since my time in graduate school when I was invited to deepen my study of them. Hildegard of Bingen seized my imagination first, a mystic and visionary, writer and composer, preacher and healer, she was one example of many of a

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The Path of Devotion ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, This Friday, February 14th, our Program Coordinator Melinda Thomas is leading a mini-retreat on Bhakti Yoga and the Inexpressible Delights of Love. Read on for her reflection on bhakti yoga and the path of devotion. There were times in my early yoga days when I heard people talk of their singular focus on the Divine Beloved. I could not relate. When I read of the Christian mystics who had their own singular gaze on the Beloved, I could not relate. Instead I felt rather inadequate. So why then, do I want to offer a retreat

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