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Category: Abbess love notes

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Winter Solstice Wisdom and Offerings ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Of Price and Worth Let the ordinary be in your hand; hold it open and imagine a bird landing, offering all it possesses in trust to come to you. Learn to look for the little things that weigh nothing at all, but fill the heart with such light they can never be measured. -Kenneth Steven, Seeing the Light Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,  We are delighted to be offering two programs this week to help you slow down and savor the gifts of this time of year as we wait for the tipping point of darkness to light in the

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My Heart Feels Lean ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,  On Friday, December 15th we are pleased to welcome Wisdom Council member and long-time forum facilitator Melissa Layer to lead us in the mini-retreat My Heart Feels Lean: Behold the Darkness, Cradle the Light. This will be a sanctuary space to be met with tenderness in these days of Advent and holy gestation. Read on for Melissa’s reflection on the grace of conscious grieving. December dusk falls early in Port Townsend on the wild Olympic Peninsula in Washington, where I live.  This liminal time calls me to wander in forest and field and on beaches where powerful king

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Give Me a Word Retreat ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,  In ancient times, wise men and women fled out into the desert to find a place where they could be fully present to the divine and to their own inner struggles at work within them. The desert became a place to enter into the refiner’s fire and be stripped down to one’s holy essence. The desert was a threshold place where you emerged different than when you entered. Many people followed these ammas and abbas, seeking their wisdom and guidance for a meaningful life. One tradition was to ask for a word – this word

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Preparing for Advent + Prayer Cycle Day 7

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,  Today we share the final two audio podcasts of our 7-day prayer cycle on the theme of The Love of Thousands. The theme for morning is on ancestral earth and deep time, honoring that our ancestors are not just our human kin, but the mountains whose minerals form our bones and the seas that swim in our blood. We are connected to all of life. The evening theme is the love of thousands, bringing the whole journey through honoring angels, saints, and ancestors together.  Advent begins in a week! Every year before Christmas since 2008 we have

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Listening to the Call of the Monk in the World + Prayer Cycle Day 6

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,  Today we release the audio podcasts for Day 6 of our Love of Thousands prayer cycle with morning and evening prayer. The themes for the morning are cosmology, myth, and song inspired by the stories and music that has inspired our ancestors and still runs through our blood and bone. The evening theme is on becoming a wise and well ancestor ourselves, which means bringing our gifts fully into the world so those generations that come later will benefit (even if we don’t have children ourselves).  Each day when I awaken I listen to morning prayer of

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BIBOLOVE InterPlay Experience + Prayer Cycle Day 5 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,  Today we release Day 5 of our Love of Thousands prayer cycle. Click the links above for morning and evening prayer on the themes of the Grieving Our Losses and Ancestral Pilgrimage. This Friday we are offering a BIBOLOVE InterPlay Experience, led by Soyinka Rahim. Soyinka will invite us into a powerful space of amplifying love in the world through meditation, affirmation, visualization, and gentle movement. Here is an introduction to the experience from Soyinka. Hi! BIBOLOVE.Uspeace ,love, joy, happiness, health, grace, and ease people of the world My name is Soyinka Rahim, GSP.  I’m a Grassroots Spiritual Practitioner,I

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The Blessings of the Ancestors + Prayer Cycle Day 4 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

“This morning, let the great cloud of witnesses be as near to us as our breathing, help us to feel the presence of our wise and well ancestors pulsing within us. Help us to feel their abundant blessing on our lives as they grieve with us and celebrate our joys. We ask them to bless our feet and guide us on our path ahead.”  (Opening prayer for Day 4 Morning of the Love of Thousands prayer cycle)  Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,  Today we release Day 4 of our Love of Thousands prayer cycle. Click the links above for morning and

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