What’s Blooming?
I could say that this newsletter is a day later because the new moon feel on a Sunday and we were resting, which is partially true, but it was more of a combination of allergy season, business launching, a sick baby, and the list goes on. I imagine your life is pretty hectic right now too. Spring is when the world comes to life again, and sometimes that takes a lot of work, but it is exciting to see all of the new things blooming, in our yards and in our lives.
There is a lot of new stuff going on around here too. As I've mentioned I'm going to be launching a clothing collection in June. I am also asking questions about where Grassroots Abbey is going. I have no plans to stop this newsletter, but the website came up for renewal, and I really don't think it's seeing any use, so I'm not sure if we should go forward with it. I'd love your input. Many of you may not know all of the things that Grassroots Abbey was intended for, mostly because we've all been in some form of isolation almost since the beginning of it.
Rule of Life
We want to have a shared Rule of Life to unify us as a community and support our common efforts for an intentional, spiritual, growing life. We have been developing this through quarterly virtual workshops, collaborating to create a plan that is solid enough to connect us and loose enough to fit us all. We've worked on getting outside more, intentional simplicity, listening to our family more than we talk, and prioritizing creative practice.
Dinner Church Network
One of the cornerstones of any monastic way of life is, in my opinion, is hospitality. This has been largely on hold over the last year, due to Covid, but I hope that all of us will be finding new opportunities to open our homes and lives over the next few months. Dinner Church Network is intended as a way to connect and share resources and ideas with each other for hosting intentional dinner gatherings with worship and discussion. Part of this is the liturgies that are included with this newsletter each month, but I would love to have more contributors and include more hands on rituals and practices. This part of the site was also intended to have a map for those who are hosting open gatherings so that people can find a community near them to join.
Retreats
Most of you found our community through our prayer and nature retreats. Sadly we only had one in person retreat before gathering became impossible. I made the decision after two virtual retreats to wait until we could meet in person again, and I am hoping that we will be able to do that in October at Abilene State Park. Our prayer and nature retreats provide a pause where participants can reflect on their lives and choose how they want to move forward. We hope that you find a connection to God as you sit in the natural world, and that you build relationships that support you in your spiritual formation.
Virtual Prayer Room
GrassrootsAbbey.com/prayers used to have a virtual prayer room with resources and prompts for taking a personal prayer retreat, even for just an hour. I have really valued the prayer rooms and retreats that I have been apart of, but most of us don't have access to that kind of space on a regular basis, so the virtual prayer room gives you some tools to take a break whenever you can make time. This is something I am hoping to get up and running again soon.
Blog and Instagram
I have experienced tremendous community through the blogs and instagram accounts of some of my favorite creatives. I have also learned that I am not very good at providing regular content in these areas. I also felt like Grassroots Abbey should have a separate account from me personally, and now that Dandelion Goods should have it's own as well, but I find these distinctions between areas of my life to be very artificial and not very natural to me, plus three places to share makes me three times less likely to be present in those spaces, so I'm trying to work out what that will look like going forward.
If any of these are resources you didn't know about I hope that they are helpful to you and that you are able to take advantage of them. Again, I would appreciate any feedback about how I can make any of these things more accessible and helpful. I would love to hear about what new things are growing in your lives as well.