Thank you to everyone who participated in our 2017 Give Me a Word invitation! We had almost 1000 participants take the online retreat to help a word choose you. Above is a word cloud made from all the words submitted by January 6th. Please note some appear larger when they were submitted more frequently. Some are quite tiny but are there in the spaces between. We have done our random drawing and are delighted to announce the winners: One space in our upcoming New Year’s online retreat – Spiraling Inward: Seven Celtic Spiritual Practices – Carol Moyle (Openings) One signed copy

January 9-April 11, 2017 (with group spiritual direction on Thursdays) with Christine Valters Paintner, PhD (limited to 12 participants) Stories offer us a map of transformation. We step inside their dream space. We are invited to release our thinking and striving minds, to surrender to a wisdom that is far deeper and more expansive. They call forth new archetypal energies within us that have been hidden and forgotten. In the ancient Celtic stories Selkies are shapeshifters, they move between worlds. They are women who take the form of a seal when in the sea and human form on land. These

**ICON CARD SETS ARE SOLD OUT.** Watch this space in the future for the next time we reprint another batch. We are delighted to offer for sale a limited number of sets of the dancing monk icon cards. All 18 designs included – the original 12 dancing monks plus an additional 6 we added from the Irish Celtic monastic tradition (see list of names below). These are printed on high quality cardstock, plastic-coated, with rounded corners, and in vibrant colors. Reverse side of all cards is the same design (see image to the right). Size is standard European A7 size (74×105

I have recently had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Br. Bernard, a Benedictine monk with the community in Rome at Sant’Anselmo. He has much interest in the phenomenon of new ways monasticism is being spread through things such as online communities like Abbey of the Arts and also hopes that we might collaborate in the future. Would you be willing to help him with a project? He has a survey he would greatly appreciate your filling out to contribute to the research he is doing. I will be very interested to see the results as well! :-) You can

Starts Monday, May 23rd with Francis of Assisi! Join us for a FREE 12-month journey through Christine Valters Paintner’s newest book Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics. Each month Christine will host a teleseminar where she will explore some of the themes of the monk and mystic featured, lead a meditation experience, and read one of her poems, as well as offer the opportunity to ask questions. The recording will be available if you can’t participate live on the call. This is a wonderful way to move slowly and intentionally through the material. You do need to purchase

I am delighted to come in second place in the Galway University Hospital Arts Trust Annual Poetry Competition (and I had two poems on the shortlist). Here is the poem I submitted: This is not a poem but a rain-soaked day keeping me inside with you and you loving me like a storm. This is a record of a hundred mornings when the sun lifted above the stone hills outside my window. This is not a poem but me standing perfectly still on the edge of the lake in autumn, watching a hundred starlings like prayer flags fluttering. This is my