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Reflections

Category: Nature

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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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January 1, 2009

Encountering Coyote

Two weeks ago I shared my journey to the nearby cemetery on a foggy morning as a way of being present to my mother on the anniversary of her death.  One thing I did not share then was my brief encounter with coyote on this walk of remembering, in part because I needed to reflect more on this meeting before speaking of it. Despite the fact that I live in a very urban neighborhood of Seattle I had heard there are coyotes roaming who come from the many green spaces and Arboretum of our beautiful city, but I had never

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November 2, 2008

Going on Retreat

How necessary it is for monks to work in the fields, in the rain, in the sun, in the mud, in the clay, in the wind: these are our spiritual directors and our novice-masters. They form our contemplation. They instill us with virtue. They make us as stable as the land we live in.  -Thomas Merton On this night of the full moon, I am off for a few days of retreat with my spiritual director Abbess Petunia.  I will be listening to the wind, rain, and sunlight for their sacred whispers.  I will root myself among trees and allow the call of

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October 14, 2008

Already in our Blood

“I believe that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we find paralyzing because we no longer hear our surprised feelings living. Because we are alone with the alien thing that has entered into our self; because everything intimate and accustomed is for an instant taken away; because we stand in the middle of a transition where we cannot remain standing. For this reason the sadness too passes: the new thing in us, the added thing, has entered into our heart, has gone into its inmost chamber and is not even there any more, is already in our

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August 31, 2008

Abbey Bookshelf: A Dog’s Life

I have loved animals since infancy.  Whereas most children’s first words are “mama” or “dada” I’ve been told many times, mine was clearly “doggie.”  My father used to tell me again and again of the time we went to the zoo when I first learned to talk and pointed at the elephant and squealed “doggie!’  My first toy was a Snoopy doll that I dragged with me everywhere for years until its fur had worn off and its head had to be sewn back on.  At about age five I was convinced I would one day marry Snoopy. Growing up

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May 7, 2008

The Thinnest Veil

Last Saturday I attended a concert of the Seattle Choral Company called “Celtic Nights” which marked the upcoming feast of Samhain on November 1st.  Samhain is the beginning of a new year in Celtic tradition and is primarily a celebration of ancestors and harvest.  It is considered one of the great doorways of the Celtic year which is divided into the seasons of dark and light and is connected to the holidays we may celebrate today — Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day.  The music was sublime and one piece in particular moved me deeply called An Caoineadh, which is

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October 30, 2007