Meet Amma Winter.  Amma is the title given to those sage women who lived in the desert in the 3rd century offering their wisdom to seekers.  They lived in harsh and barren landscapes and so were intimate with the wilderness of the soul.  Winter is a rescue, she entered our lives last week and has been slowly settling into the rhythm of life here at the Abbey.   She has a heartbreaking story.  She was abandoned with some other dogs on a farm and left to freeze to death.  When the rescuers arrived she survived but her litter of puppies did not.  Because of this

“The perceptions that the cardinal points have distinct qualities that can be called forth to shape the outcome of human effort has been common to societies throughout history. . . “But for those humans who do see the sun rise from the darkened bed of the earth in the East as they arise from their own bed, and who can call that rising morning, dawning, ascending, arising, and for those who see the sun set in the opposite horizon, having had the sun as their companion throughout the labors of their day, we see the cooling sun return to its

The other day I posted about the great autumn to be found in the midst of spring.  We are constantly immersed in the rising and falling of our lives, as close as our own breath.  Tune, aka Abbess Petunia (or more commonly, “The Abbess”), will be turning twelve in June. We have had her for nearly two and a half years and what a treasure she continues to be. When we adopted her we thought if all we do is give her the best retirement, then that is enough (after spending her life neglected in a breeding kennel).  She is my