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Cultivating Seeds of Liberation Prayer Cycle Launch and 20th Anniversary Celebration!

Note: Click CC to turn closed captions on or off. Thank you for celebrating the release of our sixth prayer cycle Cultivating Seeds of Liberation and the start of the Abbey’s 20th year! We had a beautiful time gathering in community for prayer, contemplation, story, and song. The audio podcasts for each day will be released weekly over the next seven weeks with the video podcasts coming in 2026. Listen to Day 1 Morning and Evening Prayer here or on your favorite podcast platform such as Apple or Spotify. Music for the prayer cycle is available on our album Cultivating Seeds of Liberation: Songs of

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Laura J. Collins

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Laura J. Collins’s reflection on practicing biomimicry for spiritual well-being. Janine Benyus, the founder of the Biomimicry Institute, urges individuals, organizations and even governments to pay close attention to how nature works and learn to emulate its genius to enhance our planet and our lives. She applies her work primarily to technology, but listening to her makes me wonder about our theologies and spiritual practices, as well. Are they drawing on the wisdom of nature? I work with

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Abbess love notes

New Prayer Cycle Launch and 20th anniversary celebration! ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, We are delighted to be celebrating our 19th anniversary at Abbey of the Arts and launching our 20th year of ministry and service.  For our 20th year we are planning some lovely offerings and gifts. One of these is our brand new prayer cycle Cultivating Seeds of Liberation with 7 days of morning and evening prayer center around Love, Vision, Hope, Justice, Peace, Joy, and Beauty. Each day includes an audio podcast that will be released weekly beginning next Sunday. The new prayer cycle was created with the vision of our Wisdom Council to provide a free resource that amplifies our

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Rochelle Rawson Naylor

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest series from the community. Read on for Rochelle Rawson Naylor’s reflection on the spiritual practice of being in the present moment while caring for a loved one with dementia. Be where you are. This has been my everyday mantra for myself over the decades of my adult life.  It is what I write inside the cover of my calendar in each new year, and it is below my name on my social media profile pages, so I hold it personally and share it publicly.   In earlier seasons

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Abbess love notes

Easter and the Journey to Joy! ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, Easter blessings my friends! We are in the midst of extraordinarily difficult and cruel times and it is essential we do not bypass the profound sacred grief and holy rage we feel. Easter is not about denying these realities. Easter also celebrates how in the midst of our struggles and losses, sometimes life has a way of breaking us open to something new. It calls us to hold fast to life in the midst of so much death.  Easter invites us to cling tightly to kindness and empathy in the midst of cruelty, to inhabit

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Lori DiPrete Brown

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Lori DiPrete Brown’s reflection Hope through Uncertainty: Reflections Drawing on the Writings of Julian of Norwich. The writings of Julian of Norwich, a cloistered contemplative who lived in14th Century England, recount her mystical experiences and speak about the nature of God and the soul. Julian lived in times of plague, war and social strife, yet she offers a spirituality of hopeful, tender co-creation.  In February and March of 2024 I undertook 30 days of reflection on Julian’s writings

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Abbess love notes

Ripened (S)aging: A Good Friday Invitation ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, Today we begin Holy Week and observe the transformative journey toward Easter and Resurrection. Before we jump to Resurrection it is important to sit with the landscape of grief and holy pause. On Friday, April 18th, Wisdom Council Member, psychospiritual therapist, and interfaith spiritual companion Melissa Layer will lead us in the mini-retreat Ripened (S)aging: A Good Friday Invitation for Exploration of Grief, Loss & Mortality in Our Wisdom Years. Good Friday’s potent themes of death and resurrection are compelling portals holding symbolic metaphors that offer an expanded opportunity for wisdom in our eldering years. Melissa offers us this reflection.

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Amy Oden

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Amy Oden’s reflection on silence in academic settings. As a professor I live much of my life with students in learning and discovery. This happens in physical classrooms, outside classrooms, in retreat settings and in virtual spaces. I’m noticing how my contemplative journey continues to shape and transform my teaching. My monk-in-the-world speaks into course design and class sessions, drawing my attention to the rhythms we inhabit together as learners. Life with students has been a wonderful

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Abbess love notes

Conversion, Wonder, and Being Surprised by God ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, Tomorrow, April 7th, Simon and I will be joined by guest musician Richard Bruxvoort Colligan for our monthly Contemplative Prayer Service. Our theme this month is the 7th principle of the Monk Manifesto, Conversion. Here is an excerpt from our Monk in the World self-study retreat. Principle 7: I commit to a lifetime of ongoing conversion and transformation, recognizing that I am always on a journey with both gifts and limitations. Conversion is one of the central commitments which Benedictine monks make. The other two are obedience and stability which have to do with listening deeply for God’s voice in the world and committing

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Monk in the World Guest Post: JoRene Byers

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for JoRene Byers’s reflection and poem “New Moon, Beloved Darkness”. I wrote this poem after setting aside time to prayfully gather the beautiful symbolic elements, and lighting the candles in a sacred manner for the mandala. Every step is taken with gentle awareness:  asking first, giving thanks, offering the beauty and fragrance of the incense of herbs, spices, flowers, fruit, and flame. The generosity of the more than human world always humbles and comforts me. This gathering returns me to

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