June 2019
Dear Friends,
Celebration! was the theme of our 20th anniversary of the co- founding of Green Mountain Monastery with Thomas Berry on June 1, 1999. Ten years to the day, on June 1, 2009 Thomas passed on.
Our weekend celebration on June 1, 2019 was a feast of music, art, song and dance. Over 150 friends gathered to celebrate with us. The highlight was the unveiling of the four Cosmic Stained Glass Windows (The Primal Flaring Forth, Birth of the Galaxies and Stars, Emergence of Life on Earth, Our Eco-Zoic Future) by the artist Amber Hiscott from Wales, a project we commissioned five years ago!
We presented the Thomas Berry Award for Selfless Service to 3 of our closest friends who have accompanied us over our many years.
Our artist tent displayed the work of women artists influenced by Thomas Berry and whose pieces speak on behalf of the Community of Life.
Liturgy and Sacred Dance also filled our space, with a recording of Thomas Berry reading his poem: We are all Children of the Forest and a response in dance to the song, Ancient Forests.
In his paper entitled “The Wild and the Sacred,” Thomas Berry writes:
We need to know how to participate in the wildness of the world about us. For it is out of the wild depths of the universe and our own being that the greater vision must come.
Artists have something in them that is wild, something guided by imagination and expressed in color, music and movement.
Blessings,
Sisters Gail, Bernadette, Amie and Kris
Sr Gail, Thomas Berry, Sr Bernadette – Green Mountain Monastery
Thomas Berry Award for Selfless Service – recipients Betsy Ungvarsky, Bengt Ohman and Clive Gray
Friends of Green Mountain Monastery
Liturgy theme: “We are all Children of the Forest” with Norm Comtois, OMI, John Surette, SJ preparing Eucharist. Irene Berry grand niece of Thomas Berry doing a reading from “The Wild and the Sacred,” and Sr Gail reflecting on the image of Christ in the Boat calming a stormy sea.
Amber Hiscott, glass artist from Wales unveiling the third window, the Emergence of Life on Earth
Anima Singers lead the celebration at Green Mt Monastery with writings of Thomas Berry put to music
Tent of art with art work by women artists inspired by Thomas Berry and curated by Sr Bernadette.
Eugene Friesen playing Cello
