Visit the Abbey of the Arts online retreat platform to access your programs:

Reflections

Category: Photos

Filter

Autumn Day

Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by. Now overlap the sundials with your shadows, and on the meadows let the wind go free. Command the fruits to swell on tree and vine; grant them a few more warm transparent days, urge them on to fulfillment then, and press the final sweetness into the heavy wine. Whoever has no house now, will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone, will sit, read, write long letters through the evening, and wander along the boulevards, up and down, restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing. -Rainer Maria Rilke

Read More

The Dreams of Your Body

About five years ago I had the privilege of witnessing a pod of humpback whales in Alaska.  They were bubble feeding which is this marvelous choreographed effort, where the whales swim in a circle to create bubbles and disorient a school of fish.  Then the whales dive down deep and then come straight back up out of the water with mouths wide open catching a mouthful of fish.  Watching them dive and rise I felt their longing and was lost in their beauty. Last week I read a post at Velveteen Rabbi about embodied trust which has lingered in my imagination. 

Read More

Longing for Beauty

“In one way, of course, God has given us the Morning Star already: you can go and enjoy the gift on many fine mornings if you get up early enough. What more, you may ask, do we want? Ah, but we want so much more–something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words–to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into

Read More

Full Moon Blessings

About a month ago I shared a dream I had about renting an art studio space with wide windows onto the sea.  My spiritual director said my psyche was insisting on more space for my art.  I wasn’t sure how to respond.  I love making art out of my home and as I did a cursory search of art studio spaces in Seattle I knew that didn’t feel like the spacious response my soul was longing for.  Then somehow I came across a listing for a beach cottage near Poulsbo, about an hour away, in part by ferry, right on the Hood Canal.  The

Read More

Invitation to Poetry: Requiem for a Sunflower

Welcome to our fourth Poetry Party.  These are posted every other Monday.  I select an image and a title and invite you to respond with your poems and other words inspired by the image below.  Leave them in the comments and I’ll add them to the body of the post as they come in along with a link back to your blog if you have one (not required to participate!)  I’ll add your contributions all week and then on Friday I’ll do something a little bit different for everyone who writes their own poem. I’ll make a laminated prayer card for each

Read More

Equinox Blessings

Tess’ Sunday Collection is all about autumn, so head on over to read a number of wonderful links! Bette has blessed me this day with the kindest and most gracious words.  Bette has been reading my blog since almost the beginning and has become a wonderful online friend who has inspired me in many ways, not the least of which was getting me to begin carving my own rubber stamp images! I posted some reflections on autumn last week and several of you added your own suggestions and resources.  Last year’s autumnal equinox I posted one of my favorite fall

Read More

Sowing Our Inward Seeds of Fire

Sunflower What sower walked over the earth, which hands sowed our inward seeds of fire? they went out from his fists like rainbow curves to frozen earth, young loam, hot sand, they will sleep there greedily, and drink up our lives and explode it into pieces for the sake of a sunflower that you haven’t seen or a thistle head or a chrysanthemum. Let the young rain of tears come. Let the calm hands of grief come. It’s not all as evil as you think. -Rolf Jacobsen, translated by Robert Bly, from Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart  

Read More