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Reflections

Category: Nature

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Spring Equinox Blessing ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Spring Equinox Blessing* God of balance, we ask your blessing at this threshold when light and dark are equal. Teach us to welcome both into our lives, making room for joy and sorrow, for sunlight shimmering and moonlight radiance. As the light continues to grow, and birds and insects begin their migrations, journeying by impulse and intuition, help us to listen to your call to move in a holy direction. Inspire us to celebrate the burgeoning and blossoming of buds all around us as well as within our hearts. Holy Gardener, sustain us in nourishing this season of growth, cultivate

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March 17, 2024

Transfiguration and Program Updates

A Blessing for Transfiguration Radiant God, open our eyes to all the ways the sacred shimmers before us, how gold pours forth from the robin’s throat, how sunlight returns each morning, how the moon glitters across still water, how laughter around the table kindles joy, how kindness can change lives. Free us from our need to seize these moments, to make of them stone monuments rather than tabernacles of light we carry with us in our hearts. This vision is not a call to stay on the mountain but to gather our treasures into an open embrace, to make the

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August 6, 2023

Lughnasa Blessing

I know some of you are enduring terrible heat right now, but here in Ireland the turning toward Lughnasa brings a shift in light and air that hints at autumn’s coming which I love. July is the hardest month for me because of both too much light and heat – although this year it was the rainiest month and cooler than usual thankfully – so I celebrate this feast as it brings my favorite seasons ahead when I feel more creativity and aliveness.  Wherever you are in the northern hemisphere, you might honor this threshold of turning toward harvest. And

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August 1, 2023

Celtic Spirituality Retreat + Day 3 Mary Prayer Cycle ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, We continue this week with the release of our Day 3 Birthing the Holy video podcast that accompanies my book Birthing the Holy: Wisdom from Mary to Nurture Creativity and Renewal. Day 3 Morning and Evening Prayer take the themes of Star of the Sea and Vessel of Grace.  Here is an excerpt from Day 3 Morning: Opening Prayer Stella Maris, Mary, Star of the Sea, we look to the night sky to see your brilliance shining upon the world. Be with us as a guiding light and safe harbour on our journey of surrender and trust. Show

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May 28, 2023

The Spiral Year and the Celtic Seasons ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Join Simon de Voil and me for an online retreat next Sunday April 23rd hosted by OneSpirit Seminary where we will be exploring the Spiral Year and the Celtic seasons.  This is an excerpt from my book The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred: Sacred Rhythms of the Earth The unfolding of the seasons was an overarching template for the Celtic imagination and spirit. There are significant feast days aligned with the equinoxes and solstices, then there are the cross-quarter days, which are the midway points between them and were part of the harvest cycle. 

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April 16, 2023

More from Christine Around the Web This Week

Christine was featured on the Ave Explores podcast this week to talk about “The Soul of the Artist” Christine has a new poem titled “Spring Ephemerals” in Bearings journal online which celebrates spring’s arrival and our intimacy with the more-than-human world. You can read it here>> St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Arlington, VA is having an online art exhibition in response to the pandemic – here is a collection of poems shared including mine on p. 27 “Always” under the theme of Solace. This poem comes from her second poetry collection The Wisdom of Wild Grace, being published by Paraclete

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May 1, 2020

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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January 24, 2016

Upcoming Programs

Contemplative Prayer Service: Kinship with Creation
Contemplative Prayer Service: Kinship with Creation
6 Jan 25
Centering Prayer
Centering Prayer
15 Jan 25
A Midwinter God: Encountering the Divine in Seasons of Darkness
A Midwinter God: Encountering the Divine in Seasons of Darkness
20 Jan 25

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