What breathes life into you? In Hebrew, ruach carries the meanings of wind, breath, and spirit. The English word inspiration comes from the Latin “to breathe into.” Held together, these words offer a contemplation: to be inspired is to receive what helps us come ALIVE. Hebrew gematria offers a deeper mystical connection for us to sit with. Ruach carries the value 214. Or, the word for light, carries a value of 207. The space between spirit and light is 7, a number associated with the sacred rhythm of creation. We might contemplate this relationship as light finding movement through spirit: what is received inwardly taking expression in the living world. The light we receive becomes the life we share. Sometimes inspiration arrives through a stirring of creativity. Sometimes through the wind in the trees, a sacred conversation, or the quiet return to prayer. Here, in MONASTICA, we invite room to notice these movements—to listen for what nourishes our capacity to love, to create, and to participate more fully in life. How might inspiration become an embodied response: a word of kindness? a moment of courage? a work of art? a faithful act of care? Pause. Notice your breath. What is breathing life into you? How might you carry that life into the world? Please share, if you feel inspired😊 📸A photo from Women at the Well…our water ritual inspired life to come into areas of my body which carry tension, fear, and mis-trust. My prayer is to trust more deeply with each life-giving breath. To receive the waters of healing through each breath as a baptismal sacrament. To be made anew from the deep well of knowing…God is here for me too.

We each encounter God in different ways, shaped by the unique relationship we cultivate with the Divine. I’d love to hear how you are experiencing the presence of Love in this season of your life. Perhaps it comes through prayer or meditation, time in nature, grief, chanting, creating with your hands, or simply sitting in silence. What draws you nearer to God? And when you become aware of that loving Presence, what shifts within you? How does it change the way you inhabit your body, meet your life, or move through the world? There are many ways to return to the Holy. What is yours in this season?

Hildegard’s prayer recalls the Tree of Life communions of the modern Essene tradition—the seven Angels of the Earthly Mother and the seven Angels of the Heavenly Father, through whom we learn to live in conscious relationship with creation. After years of faithful communion, we do not gain dominion over the elements through force, but through intimacy. Earth, water, air, fire, sun, life, and joy cease to be mere resources; they become teachers and sacred expressions of the Living God. This is the greening wisdom Hildegard called viriditas: divine vitality moving through the human body, the natural world, and the whole web of creation. Both paths remind us that nature is not simply the setting of our spiritual lives. It is a living sanctuary—and we are restored as we remember how to belong within it. Hildegard of Bingen was a 12th-century Benedictine abbess, mystic, composer, herbalist, and visionary whose wisdom still calls us into deeper communion with the living world. For Hildegard, nature was not separate from spiritual life; it was a sacred revelation, alive with divine intelligence. Her life reminds us that contemplation is not an escape from the world, but a way of learning to see its holiness again—to listen to the wind, honor the elements, tend the body, and recognize all creation as radiant with the presence of God.

https://youtu.be/fP5ni0epH50?is=raUMgLzipdlEqvWw

As I work regularly with the Sevenfold Peace Path, I have found it very healing, reconciling with my families religious lineage of Christianity. Fortunately, growing up, I did not experience any form of fundamentalism. And yet, I always desired a place to belong. With my mystic lens, I always found it hard to be contained within a dogmatic system. At the same time, I longed for something that offered deeper roots, spiritual guidance, culture, and tradition than I was finding in spiritually fluid communities. I began to contemplate how I might restore some traditions that have been woven throughout my ancestral line. This line does not run straight. It weaves through the Judeo-Christian line as well into the earth-based practices of Germanic Druids or the Scottish Celts. I’m curious to know if any of you have found a similar call? One towards a reclamation of ancestral lineage? There’s a lot of work here to restore peace in this area. Blessings to all on the path. May it bring an abundance of LIFE. From this personal exploration, this writing was inspired for HOLY CROSS DAY, September 14th: For centuries we have been taught to look upon it as the instrument of our salvation. That humanity’s sin created a debt which could only be satisfied through blood, and that God offered the Son as the sacrifice necessary to reconcile creation to its Creator. But what if we looked again? What if the Cross does not reveal a God who required death, but a God whose Life could not finally be overcome by death? I find myself returning to a simple question, would the Source of Life require death in order to give Life? Would an all-loving, all-powerful God need the killing of the beloved Son before mercy could be extended to creation? Or might the Cross be telling us something very different? Perhaps God did not demand the Cross, perhaps we created it through empires, fear, violence, domination and religious certainty. The Cross was a Roman instrument of torture and execution long before Christians placed it upon our altars or wore them around their necks.