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Category: Abbess love notes

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Embrace Attention and Presence for Lent ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I continue my Lenten series at Patheos this week on A Different Kind of Fast. This week I explore fasting from multitasking and embracing attention to a single thing at a time. It can be so tempting to think, that in our busy lives multitasking will somehow make us more efficient and productive. We bemoan not having more hours in the day, but the hours we do have our attention is scattered, always trying to keep up. We spread our gaze between so many demands that we may get many things done, but none of it is

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Embrace a Mindful Slowness ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I continue my Lenten series at Patheos this week on A Different Kind of Fast. This week I explore fasting from speeding through life on the surface and embracing a mindful slowness: Modern life seems to move at full speed and many of us can hardly catch our breath between the demands of earning a living, nurturing family and friendships, and the hundreds of small daily details like paying our bills, cleaning, grocery shopping. More and more we feel stretched thin by commitments and lament our busyness, but without a clear sense of the alternative.

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Fasting from Anxiety + Radical Hospitality ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I have two reflections and two poems for you this week. Read on for more goodness from the Abbey. . . I continue my Lenten series at Patheos this week on A Different Kind of Fast. This week I explore fasting from anxiety and entering into a radical stance of trust through the practice of Sabbath-keeping. Click here to read the article>> I also have a guest post this week at the wonderful website Monasteries of the Heart on the practice of radical hospitality and inviting in holy disruption. Click here read the article>> I

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Feast of St Gobnait and a Celebration of Love ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, On the 11th of February this past week was the Feast of St. Gobnait.  I only learned about St. Gobnait after moving to Ireland. She is a 5th-6th century monk who fled her home in County Clare and headed first for the island of Insheer. It is not clear why she fled, only that she was seeking refuge on the Aran Islands. Click here to read my reflection on her at Patheos>> I am delighted to have a poem about St. Gobnait published in the online journal Headstuff here.  Gobnait features in our upcoming online

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Grow in intimacy with the Earth Monastery this Lent ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, The season of Lent begins this Wednesday and we are offering an online retreat experience for this holy time which extends through the first week of Easter. We invite you into a contemplation of the Earth as Original Monastery and to nourish an earth-cherishing consciousness. Jesus begins his own ministry with a time out in the wilderness, seeking the ways that creation can challenge us and nourish us and reveal new directions. Imagine spending 40 days yourself listening for the wisdom of wilderness. The monk here and now is supposed to be living the life

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Feast of St Brigid + Free Mini-Retreat ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Tomorrow is the Feast of St. Brigid, one of the most beloved saints in Ireland. In late April I have a new book being released titled Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics in which I explore 12 monks and mystics through the lens of archetypes, those great universal patterns we all contain within us. Brigid is featured inviting us to consider our own inner Healer. Here is an excerpt (and see below for a free mini-retreat to explore her feast day further): Most of what we know about St. Brigid comes

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Creativity and Social Transformation

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Last week I shared that 2016 marks the 10th anniversary of Abbey of the Arts’ existence as a virtual monastery. I will be reflecting back on some of my reflections from the Archives and tracing the development of the Abbey this year.  From the beginning, my heart has been sparked by the conversation between contemplative practice and creative expression and how it might be a force for transformation in the world. Here is a reflection I wrote in the first month of creating the blog on Creativity and Social Transformation: If in the Judeo-Christian tradition

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