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Reflections

Category: Lent Easter

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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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Practicing Resurrection through the Wisdom of Our Wounds ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Easter Blessing* God of rising, you bring new life to all the places death inhabits. Bless our own dying dreams with your greening breath, make our dry bones dance, inspire us to sing, revive our bodies so we might become more vibrant, hopeful witnesses to the life’s persistence. We call on Christ’s wisdom to bless and sustain us in the practice of resurrection, of honoring our bodies and being agents of generous abundance. May all the nets we draw up from the water be overflowing with fish, may our wounds still visible be a sign of healing grace, and may

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Holy Week Blessing ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Holy Week Blessing* Godde of Paradox, you call us to sit these coming days in the heart of betrayal, abandonment, mockery, violence, to not avert our eyes but see ourselves in the story. Travel with us into the border spaces of unknowing holding death and life, the liminal realm of in-between. As we feel the suffering and loss of Jesus, let us not rush to resurrection just yet, but linger a while in mystery. In this temple of grief, strip us of our attachments, the identities we cling to, the securities we believe in, disorient us so we might walk

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Fasting and the Three Renunciations ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists, This week begins our Lenten journey through the desert of our hearts. If you want to make an intentional pilgrimage with kindred spirits, we invite you to join our companion retreat to my book A Different Kind of Fast, where we explore different kinds of fasting including from speed and productivity and from craving certainty.  This is an excerpt from the introduction of the book: One of the early teachings of the Christian church I find helpful to understand fasting is from John Cassian who talks about three renunciations. Cassian, an early theologian in the Christian church, writes

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A Different Kind of Fast Lent Retreat ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists, We have ten days until the start of Lent. How will you consecrate that holy season in the wilderness? We are hosting an online pilgrimage with a companion retreat to my book A Different Kind of Fast. Read on for an excerpt:  The forty days of Lent are a sacred journey through the wilderness which means there will be moments of challenge. Even if we live in the middle of the suburbs or in the heart of the city, the wilderness becomes a metaphor for those places we need to wrestle and ultimately soften toward ourselves, bring lavish compassion

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