“How necessary it is for monks to work in the fields, in the sun, in the mud, in the clay, in the wind: these are our spiritual directors and our novice-masters.” -- Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas Thomas Merton, the 20th century Trappist monk, knew that the true...
Today's parents are too often fed fictions of parental "love."Most of us think of love in terms of the comfort, passion, closeness, or tenderness it will bring. We imagine the enjoyment of passing hours and days with a beloved who pleases us in every way—touch, smell,...
Rev. Matthew Fox, PhD, author, theologian, and activist priest, has been calling people of spirit and conscience into the Creation Spirituality lineage for over 50 years. His 36 books (translated into 74 languages), as well as his lectures, retreats, and innovative...
What happens to the dead? Do they vanish into oblivion, their molecules assumed back into soil and strata? Or do they ascend into heavenly realms beyond our comprehension? Do they lurk in graveyards as vampires and zombies, ready to reach their bony hands up through...
Recently at a sold-out screening of Amplify Her, the new film that I co-directed on the rise of the feminine within electronic music, I had a woman come up to me afterward. She was overcome with emotion and couldn’t quite find her words. Eventually, she mustered “Your...
In the time of Covid, we grandparents may worry that the kids are lost to us. Here’s a moment to remind us that they are growing—and they are dealing with this scary time—the best they can. I learned this lesson on a trip to the beach.I had lost him. My grandchild was...
On my first trip to Ireland in 2007 with my husband John, I read Thomas Cahill’s now-classic book How the Irish Saved Civilization, in which he describes the essential role of the Irish monks and their work on illuminating manuscripts during the Dark Ages. I was...
Mary Reynolds Thompson is the author of Embrace Your Inner Wild and Reclaiming the Wild Soul: How Earth’s Landscapes Restore Us to Wholeness. She is also an instructor for the non-profit TreeSisters, a facilitator of poetry therapy and journal therapy, and a certified...
These past twenty years, menstrual-honoring practice has saved my life, and it has been at the crux of my spiritual practice. It hasn’t come simply or easily. One out of every four weeks I bawl at the drop of a hat and am an emotional rollercoaster. I am...
Whether by flood, fire or ice, a cataclysm that destroys life on earth and cleanses the planet for a new cycle of rebirth is a nearly universal motif found in world spiritual and mythological literature. It occurs in ancient Native American, Sumerian, Greek, Hindu,...
