inspiration

23 Spiritual Practices Taught by The Rule of Benedict

Spirituality / By

What do spiritual practices do? Practice is how people develop the skills to become adept at anything. Music students practice their instruments. Gymnasts practice routines, yoga students practice poses, swimmers practice strokes, and tennis players practice their serves. Successful organizational leaders practice self-mastery and teamwork. Just as all these people practice to become more proficient, spiritual …

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What nuns, monks and poets know about heartfelt listening and how we learn compassion

Poetry, Spirituality / By

What is heartfelt listening? Scientifically, the heart is the organ that pumps the blood. Philosophically or spiritually, however, the idea of “heart” is more difficult to put into words. Heartbreak is emotional anguish. Heartland is the center of a country. The heartless are unfeeling; to know something by heart requires intimate familiarity; and a heartwarming …

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Hello world, I'm back; I've changed.

29 Comments / Writing / By

It’s been 16 months –almost the duration of two full-term-pregnancies–since I left the blogosphere. It’s been an Beyond the Looking Glass wild kind of adventure. Please forgive my mysterious non-disclosure about the details behind my disappearance. I’m keeping them quiet for 2 reasons: It’s too freshly painful to recount sensibly and sensitively–memoir needs a lens of distance to achieve objectivity; And more …

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B is for Breath: living well, despite everything

40 Comments / Years Ago / By

This series is an alphabetical exploration of 26 options for living well, despite everything. It answers the question– How can a person live well with an unsolvable, unfixable problem?  B is for Breath! Breath–the inspiration of oxygen and exhalation of toxins–performs marvelous healing work in the body and for the soul. Breathing is natural. Babies do it …

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Tracy Lee Karner

Easter Morning

3 Comments / Poetry / By

I’ve been told that repeating the same ritual twice makes it a tradition. Today we visited Conimicut Point in Rhode Island, making it our new tradition to spend Easter listening to the crash of waves. Here’s the poem I wrote when we spent Easter morning in Rockport, Massachusetts. Toward Daylight We face the sun we cannot …

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