Earth, Our Original Monastery Lent Retreat ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
To Hear Our Calling Through Creation* Holy One,bless us with the wisdomto live fully as the people you created us to be,with no doubt or hesitation.Help us to become people who know our sacred purpose like an oak tree possesses majesty,an owl owns the night, a stream quietly sings,and marigolds lift their faces with joy. […]
Kinship with Creation ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
For Kinship with Creation*God of lavish fecundity,you overflow into nature in every moment,offering your gifts of beauty and nourishment.Nurture me with sacred rhythms of light and dark,rising and falling, fullness and emptiness,as the pulse of your loving presence animates every living thing.Help me to remember my own wildnessso that I come to knowevery bird, fish, […]
Monk in the World Guest Post: Jo-ed Tome
I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Wisdom Council member Jo-ed Tome’s reflection Slower. Softer. Simpler. I did not exactly set out to become a monk. If someone had told my younger self that “monk” would one day be […]
Imbolc and the Feast of St. Brigid ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
On Imbolc and the Feast of St. Brigid* Spirit of Rebirth,your new life pulses below the rumbling ground.Attune our earsto the renewal taking formbeneath the winter earth,snowdrops and crocusesin white and purple-petaled wonder,hedgehogs and bearsbeginning to stir from sleep. Let Brigid be our guideas we navigate the wayfrom rest to slow emergence;support us in nourishingthe […]
Monk in the World Guest Post: Natalie Gould
I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Natalie Gould’s reflection Unchosen Habits. I’ve chosen monk-like paths. At twenty-four, I bought hiking boots and moved to the Isle of Mull in Scotland. I joyfully participated in work and worship with […]
Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
For Glimpses of Heaven Here and Now*Sacred Source of Joy,help us to see glimpsesof heaven all around us,in the urgency of each spring’s blooming,in the simple gifts of waterto bathe in and drink,in our morning tea or coffee,with steam rising like this prayer,in the dog’s pleading eyesor the warm embrace of a friend,in the food […]
Monk in the World Guest Post: Melissa Layer
I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Wisdom Council member Melissa Layer‘s reflection on making nature mandalas. I became aware of how the extraordinary is exquisitely entangled within the everyday ordinary, and how I met Spirit there when I […]