I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jennifer Miller’s reflection and poem Winged Teachers. One of the best lessons from the pandemic was the art of slow living. My backyard became my sanctuary, and everything happening in it was suddenly much more interesting to me. The less human contact I had, the more kinship I felt with all the animals who lived just a few steps away. My greatest teachers during that time were a pair of Eastern bluebirds. As the female brooded for

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Paula Hogue’s visual art reflection. Drawing and painting have always been an important part of my contemplative practice. When I go into my studio, my breath slows down, my shoulders release and my mind quiets. As I enter into the project I lose all sense of time and space and I feel that I go deep inside myself. My imagery often relates ideas and themes that I have been exploring and working to heal within myself. Art

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for PattiJoy’s reflection and poem Introduction to Stillness. The poems in my Book of Hours trace the subtle movements of the day — not by clock or ritual, but by breath, presence, and the shifting of light across the natural world. I call these Hours Before Dawn, Early Morning, Night Watch, and First Light, for they mark the soul’s quiet thresholds. Stillness belongs among them as a meditation on the ways nature teaches without effort: moonlight, fireflies, the stirring of the

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read one for Martha Van Vactor’s reflection That Night. That night as predicted, there was the beautiful huge, very larger-than-life moon lighting up the night in an ever-so-peaceful and quiet time. I felt an instant, overwhelming rejuvenation in the sight of that large moon seemingly close enough to reach out and fearlessly grab!   Then I looked around at my surroundings, so well-lit for a change in the darkness of normal nights in the desert. Just a short time ago here was a

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jaqui Eicher’s reflection and poem. After reading Christine Valters Paintner’s poem, “St. Gall and the Bear,” I responded in writing to the prompt: “Write about a time you extended kindness to someone or an animal being and they reciprocated in ways you did not expect.” My writing took me back twenty years to a moment that still sparkles in my heart; electric with love. What emerged brought tears to my eyes because I now recognize this animal encounter