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Reflections

Category: Nature

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Sacred Mountain

The great, gashed, half-naked mountain is another of God’s saints. There is no other like him. He is alone in his own character; nothing else in the world ever did or ever will imitate God in quite the same way. That is his sanctity. -Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation These mountains — Mount Baker and the Sisters and Shuksan, the Canadian Coastal Range and the Olympics on the peninsula — are surely the edge of the known and comprehended world…. That they bear their own unimaginable masses and weathers aloft, holding them up in the sky for anyone to

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Notes from the Abbess

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

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In the Midst of Spring . . .

 . . . there is also a Great Autumn. What is being released within you to make way for summer’s fruit? © Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts: Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

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Life is the only way

A Note Life is the only way to get covered in leaves, catch your breath on the sand, rise on wings; to be a dog, or stroke its warm fur; to tell pain from everything it’s not; to squeeze inside events, dawdle in views, to seek the least of all possible mistakes. An extraordinary chance to remember for a moment a conversation held with the lamp switched off; and if only once to stumble upon a stone, end up soaked in one downpour or another, mislay your keys in the grass; and to follow a spark on the wind with

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Depths of the Divine Fecundity

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. The mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribeable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator’s Thought and Art within me, speaking

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A Prayer to Begin

I’m the secret fire in everything, and everything smells like Me. The living breathe My sweet perfume, and they breathe out praise of Me. They never die because I am their Life. I flame out—intense, godly Life—over the shining fields of corn, I glow in the shimmer of the fire’s embers, I burn in the sun and the moon and the stars. The secret Life of Me breathes in the wind and holds all things together soulfully. This is God’s voice. -Hildegard of Bingen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fiery Spirit, Source of all creative power, Kindle your Holy Spark within me, Breathe into

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Taking Flight

I awoke this morning, on New Year’s Day, with a heart full of hope.  Last year was brimming with new possibilities and the year ahead brings with it so many adventures and invitations to dance on the edges of things, I am absolutely dizzy with anticipation. In a most ordinary moment, I was taking sweet Tune for her morning walk today, when as I returned a flock of pigeons took flight across the street.  A fairly common occurrence in the heart of the city, and yet this morning I had this transcendent moment where I felt myself lifted with them, my breath stopped, heart

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