Every element of creation expresses the Creator. Within each mountain, each stone, and each heart lies the Great Spirit… When looking upon a sunset, the trees, or even your worst enemy, you are looking at the Creator. Know this and give praise and prayer.
- Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Redbird)
The entire Creation still follows the Original Instructions of life. The Tree, the fruits, they never fail.
They never make a mistake to bring their fruits in their season.
The Animals never make a mistake.
They still live as they were created.
Among the Creation…Life, the Circle, a measurement with no beginning and no ending.
- Phillip Deere (Muskogee Creek 1977)
Think of yourself as an incandescent power, illuminated and perhaps forever talked to by God and his messengers.
- Brenda Ueland
” A wee child toddling in a wonder world , , , I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan.”
- Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Redbird)
So be patient with the events in life that find you feeling disappointed, and remember each line we script in the Great Play we call life, is a line that is never wasted, and a line that can ultimately lead to something more beautiful than we can ever possibly imagine in the present. This is true for each one of us.
-Tim Watson
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
-Albert Einstein
“I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at the center within you and I am at that place within me, we shall be One.”
Spoken by Chief Crazy Horse, September, 1877.
The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf.
- Shakti Gawain
You too are a Medicine Wheel, and the magic of your Perceiving will be unfolded.
- Hyemeyohsts Storm
What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope. —Wendell Berry
In a dark time, the eye begins to see.
-Theodore Roethke
The New Monk Project is a 501 c3 non-profit organization, © 2009 material is not to be printed, reproduced or otherwise manipulated for material gain.
History
Historical Context
Before the European Invasions, there was a native people called the Toltecs who dwelt high in the mountains of the Americas. Somewhat akin to the Tibetans, they were a highly spiritual people. Persons from any tribe who felt called to the life of high spirit were welcome to join them. In Christian culture there were spiritual oases called monasteries that were populated by persons called to live a life focused on communication with the Divine. We call these people monks and they exist today, not only in monasteries but here among us. In the case of New Monks they are us.
While the Toltecs and the Christian Monks lived on mountain tops or in monasteries, the New Monks live in the midst of the marketplace – in towns, in cities and in the countryside. We wear neither robes nor habits. As a New Monk saying goes; “The world is our monastery and our habits are in our hearts”. Fine romantic words but true. And our challenge is formidable: to bring the contemplative consciousness that is our heritage into the competitive hustle of the business world, the political world, and the sexual world where so much human suffering is generated. As we do so, these arenas are transformed, and the traditional monastic vows turned upside down. Poverty gives way to abundance, chastity to intimacy, outward obedience to inward attunement. If this is your spiritual calling, you are a “New Monk”.
Current History
Some forty years go Sunder Wells, a catholic convert, underwent a spiritual transformation that she felt to be a call to the monastic life. However, as the wife of an Air Force officer and mother of two young children, such a call made no sense. With the support of her Jesuit spiritual director she decided to attempt to live the life of a “monk in the world”.
Over the years she encountered others who had experienced this same call, and together they formed a friendship and support network which became The New Monk Project. At one time there were over 300 worldwide members of this network which welcomed contemplatives from all religious traditions.
Eighteen years later, her children grown, Sunder became a student of Zen Buddhism and began her personal journey into what is now known as an Integral Spirituality, drawing upon the wisdom of all traditions of East and West, including that of Native People all over the world. Each “New Monk” follows a unique spiritual journey response to the inner word which becomes more clear as we learn to listen.
The present form of the Project grew out of a recent bequest left by Sr. Mariquita Platov, a Russian Orthodox hermit. This required us to incorporate and formalize our structure, create an office and staff, launch a website and test the waters to see how many new New Monks there may be now on this cutting edge of an integral spiritual path.
You may contact Sunder personally at sunderwells@gmail.com.