Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Contemplative rhythms are essential here at Abbey of the Arts, both in terms of what we teach as well as what we practice. Each week we try to take a Sabbath day as a time to celebrate the lavish gift of rest. Each summer we take a month of sabbatical time to refresh and renew our bodies and spirits. We both long for a longer time of sabbatical. If we still worked in a university or church setting this might be built in to the financial support, but since we are entirely self-supporting taking this

St. Gobnait and the Place of Her Resurrection On the tiny limestone island an angel buzzes to Gobnait in a dream, disrupts her plans, sends her in search of nine white deer. She wanders for miles across sea and land until at last they appear and rather than running toward them she falls gently to wet ground, sits in silence as light crawls across sky, lets their long legs approach and their soft, curious noses surround her. Breathing slowly, she slides back onto grass and clover and knows nothing surpasses this moment, a heaven of hooves and dew. Is there

Holy Mountain* I want to climb the holy mountain ascend over weight of stone and force of gravity, follow the rise of a wide and cracked earth toward eternal sky, measured steps across the sharp path, rest often to catch my heavy breath. I want to hear the silence of stone and stars, lie back on granite’s steep rise face to silver sky’s glittering points where I can taste the galaxies on my tongue, communion of fire, then stand on the summit and look out at the laboring world. I want to witness earth’s slow turning with early light brushing

Connemara Illuminated A poem is being scribed this morning across the thick brown bog and over the gashed granite folds of mountain, written in spires of gold descending from the wide bowl of sky across the breathing heather. You have to pause to read it, long enough to hear beneath the relentless moan of wind where centuries of voices have whispered their seeking, feasting, fasting, loving. You know your singular aloneness and your place in a communion of stone and sea. Even as the kestrel’s wings vibrate into the night sending quills into the damp air, even as the skylarks