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

Login Here

Reflections

Category: Abbess love notes

Filter

Join Us for a Virtual Celtic Pilgrimage ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Tomorrow is the eve of St. Brigid’s feast day, a threshold time in the Celtic imagination where the doors to the Otherworld open wider and we are invited to rest into this liminal space and listen for our heart’s true calling.  As the pandemic continues on, many of you have asked us if we would consider creating a virtual pilgrimage. We are delighted to invite you into this sacred space with us. Nine days of giving yourself the gift of dwelling in time outside of time and letting your imagination bring you on a journey of

Read More
January 30, 2022

Blessed Feast Day of St. Muirgen(The Mermaid Saint)

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I come to the sea to listen to ancient rhythms and the primordial voice. I come because it is exquisite medicine. I come because in another life I was a mermaid or a Selkie, diving beneath the dark surface of the cold water to find new worlds waiting. I come because this adopted home of mine is an island and the edge where sand and shore meet is always a portal. I come because when I sit and watch the waves roll and roil life makes sense, chatter quiets, I can drink from the well

Read More
January 27, 2022

Celtic Wisdom for Troubled Times ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Love Note:  Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, We are thrilled to be offering a virtual Celtic pilgrimage starting January 31st which is the feast of St. Brigid. Journey with us over nine days as we deepen into Celtic wisdom and hear the stories of Brigid, Ciaran, and Gobnait. Each day’s live session (via Zoom) also includes film footage from Brigit’s Garden and two of the Aran Islands as well as our wonderful guides Dara Molloy, Jenny Beale, Deirdre Ni Chinneide, and Pius Murray. (All sessions will be recorded if you can’t join us live). Simon de Voil will be joining me to hold

Read More
January 23, 2022

Cultivating a Wild Heart of Connection ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I first met Lindsay Sudeikis at a Spiritual Directors International conference in Seattle in 2019. She was co-leading a workshop on ancestral lineage healing. It was a beautiful program and at the end I went up to introduce myself and thank her for the experience.  We discovered we had much in common. She was immersed in Catholic mystical practices and traditions (and had been a nun in a contemplative order for a period of her life). Her ancestors were from Lithuania (Baltic like my Latvian ones) and from Ireland where she travels regularly to spend

Read More
January 16, 2022

Give Me a Word – Drawing Winners: A Love Note From Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Thanks to everyone who shared their word with our community! The practice of listening for a word to guide you into the next season of your life is an ancient one.  This is an excerpt from my book Desert Fathers and Mothers: A brother questioned Abba Hierax saying, “Give me a word.  How can I be saved?” The old man said to him, “Sit in your cell, and if you are hungry, eat, if you are thirsty, drink; only do not speak evil of anyone, and you will be saved. (Hierax 1) A key phrase, repeated often in the Sayings of

Read More
January 9, 2022

Health Update from Christine

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims, I continue to feel deeply grateful for your loving prayers and circle of care. I truly feel held and lifted during this time of illness with COVID-19. Thankfully I am starting to turn a corner on symptoms. My congestion and coughing are quite a bit better now although I am still very fatigued and sleeping a lot during the day. If you enrolled in one of our upcoming programs you will have seen that we are cancelling some things and postponing others, all to give myself the most spaciousness for recovery possible. It has been

Read More
January 7, 2022