Growing darkness… tis the season where we wake-up mostly just to turn around and re-enter our cozy nests curling the blankets securely around our neck, so the draft doesn’t get us. The brief hours or simple moments of light that touch our cheeks are so fleeting. Then there is that hour change that doesn’t happen...

I have been considering the idea of ‘reciprocal feeding’ and ‘The Great Exchange’ as described in ‘The Eye of the Heart’. Of how the flow of nutrients like forgiveness, kindness and patience (‘the fruits of the spirit’) up and down the Ray of Creation is what keeps the connections between the realms vibrant and alive, and keeps the realms themselves, vibrant and alive and in dynamic equilibrium.

“The heart overflows with gladness and goes leaping and dancing for the great pleasure it has found in God.” - Martin Luther from his Commentary on the Magnificat.

Traditional Benedictine spirituality, and Christian monasticism in general, are rooted in the rule of St. Benedict. The “Rule” has been followed, interpreted and examined by many for almost 1500 years, yet it still exists and thrives...

“...Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.” - Wendell Berry

"Pater Noster o Il discorso della montagna" (1895) Domenico Morelli, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Prayer has not always been a practice of words. The natural world has long invited people to pause, pay attention, and encounter the sacred through light, weather, living things, and landscape. This contemplative path is known as Terra Divina, meaning “Divine Earth” or “Sacred Earth.” Rooted in the tradition of Lectio Divina—prayerful, receptive reading—Terra Divina invit

“...ladies, light of my eyes, deign to remember me, whether I am in the body or out of the body.” - Saint Egeria (or Etheria or Aetheria ), from her writings now known as the Peregrinatio or Itinerarium Egeriae.

The human world is driven by story. We have the unique ability to enter other people’s lives through word and image. In doing so, we condense the vastness of a life into highlights, and those highlights have a way of gripping our hearts. This is as true of the story of Jesus of Nazareth as it is for each of us.

“Somewhere in those depths of silence I came upon my first experiences of God as a loving presence that was always near, and prayer as a simple trust in that presence.” - Cynthia Bourgeault, from Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening.

Despite my efforts in positive thinking, I still spend a lot of time steering myself out of shame spirals over the mistakes I've made and the flaws I can't seem to shake...

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. [A human] experiences [It]self, [Its] thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of [human] consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.” - Bishop Oscar Romero (Canonised

To the stars, we are no more than an asteroid striking Earth: a momentous force of nature playing itself out. Life will shift, adapt, and go on without us. But we are not indifferent to the pain of Earth. We grieve because we are Earth, made of dust and breath, spirit and soil.

“Each one...has to be God’s microphone.” - Bishop Oscar Romero (Canonised 2019).

The full body sensation of an emotional trigger requires the Welcome Practice writ large, extended in real time to the real world. Sitting in a board meeting, I can usually do the mental work to attend to what’s being said. I can usually do the wisdom work to let go of my preconceived ideas and consider things non-anxiously. But holy hell, to be aware when bodily sensations are hijacking me? That’s hard work.

"Just as a flower unfolds in silence and its scent worships its Creator in silence, the interior soul must do likewise.” - Sister Marie-Aimée de Jésus OCD in The Twelve Degrees of Silence (P54).

On Friday, I went for a walk in Mary Young Park, a lush oasis on the banks of the Willamette River in a suburb of Portland. Well-trodden paths meander through tall coastal redwoods and sitka spruce, big leaf maple and western red cedar, ponderosa pine and a small stand of old Oregon white oak. The river flows wide and deep at this time of the year...

"We must learn to speak according to our own inner truth, as far as we can perceive it. We must learn to say what we really mean in the depth of our souls, not what we think we are expected to say...” - Thomas Merton in Spiritual Direction & Meditation

Here we stand in the midst of Holy Week. As we recollect the events that unfolded, we begin to sense that they are not only sacred stories, but living patterns that continue to reverberate within us and around us now. Holy Week begins with celebration. A road covered with palm branches. A king entering the city. On the surface, all appears well.

In this season of Ramadan and Lent, a mystical reflexion: “...And ever is Allah, over all things, an Observer.” - The Qur'an: Surah Al-Ahzab (33:52) In This Month's Issue... Reflect with Paula Pryce on Pip, lost and found: The reconciling force of an adventuring cat (a mostly true story). Become Stillness in Motion, through a 1-day, in-person, contemplative and energy-healing practices retreat with Kimiko Karpoff and Leslie Sandra Black, to be held on April 18, 2026 in Vict

The reconciling force of an adventuring cat (a mostly true story) by Paula Pryce - photo by James Wheeler Pip went missing. Then in his own way, Jeremy did too. Jeremy was the young man who loved and fed her. He lost himself with the loss of Pip, but after a while, something unexpected happened. Jeremy learned that reconciliation only really comes when we give everything away. It began like this: Jeremy moved back home. He had long been a nomad, searching out holy places in t