Connecting your body and Spirit through movement, prayer, creativity, and scripture
The Dancing Word invites you to reconnect body and Spirit in a way that is creative, prayerful, and deeply life-giving.
Through guided dance videos, live classes, retreats, and beautifully crafted resources, you’ll discover how movement can become prayer — and how your own body can become a place of joy, healing, and sacred expression.
Explore dance in worship and discover what 50+ years of embodied ministry can offer you.
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Connect with a global circle of Dancing Monks through Abbey of the Arts.
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ConnectThe Love of Thousands: Dancing with Angels, Saints & Ancestors is a collection of 20 prayer dances plus teaching videos created by Betsey Beckman to accompany The Love of Thousands CD and prayer cycle.These resources companion Christine Valters Paintner’s book The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk with Us Toward Holiness. Dances in this collection celebrate Angelic Guides, Mystics and Saints, (including Julian of Norwich, Clare of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Mechtild of Magdeburg, and Angela of Foligno,) Ancestral Wisdom and Blessings, Grieving the Passage of our Loved Ones, Pilgrimage, Ancestral Earth, and Spiritual Healing. Dances were filmed at sacred spaces in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, California, France, Spain, Bali, and Uganda.
The collection features guest artists Soyinka Rahim gsp, Leah Mann, Karin Stevens, Vania Bynum, Agnotti Cowie, Corey Action, and the Friends of Hope Cultural Center in Uganda.
Our latest collection of dances at Abbey of the Arts accompanies Christine Valters Paintner’s beautiful book – The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints & Ancestors Walk with us Toward Holiness. I am currently working on completing all the dance offerings to embody the songs on the accompanying CD: The Love of Thousands: Singing with Angels, Saints & Ancestors. When I began to dream about how to depict the ecstatic feeling of dancing with a whole collection of saints on the “other side,” what came to mind is a church in San Francisco called St. Gregory of Nyssa where the rotunda is full of beautiful icons of saints through time — all depicted dancing together in a ring! I just knew that I needed to step foot into this holy place and join in the dance with this circle of heavenly saints.
In collaboration with Abbey of the Arts we’ve created a series of DVDs and videos to inspire your dancing.
The Love of Thousands: Dancing with Angels, Saints, and Ancestors
Birthing the Holy: Dancing with Mary and the Sacred Feminine
Monk in the World: Moving with Mystery
Earth, Our Original Monastery: Dancing Our Way to the Divine
The Soul's Slow Ripening: Dancing the Sacred on a Celtic Path
Dancing with Monks and Mystics
What possibilities are you pondering these days? How to make a difference in the world? How to bring your life energy to faith and family? How to grieve what’s gone? How to follow what brings you joy? How to be a peace-maker? How to balance life between resistance and rest?
It’s the sweetest thing when we are able to do what we love creatively in the world, and when we can move with a heart of service as well!
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Pondering the Possibilities
Aaargh and shiver me timbers! It’s been a whole summer since I’ve written to you! And during this season you can see that I had a powerful encounter with Captain Hook! As you may remember, it is part of my family tradition to create video productions with my grandnieces/nephews during our summer stay in Michigan together. This year brought forth the story of Peter Pan! What an amazing adventure to enter this story with 7 of my family little ones from 3-13 years old. Not only that, but seven of our adults also jumped in as pirates, plus a brother as videographer and sister as co-director. Woohoo!
I hope you, too, have had a chance to enter some revelry in the sweet gifts of summer! Please take a look at some of the adventures I have planned for the coming year … it would be so good to share some dancing time with you!
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Dancing with Peter Pan
As I sit down to reflect with you now, we are six Sundays through the season of Easter. What a season of fullness I have been immersed in these past few months! I’ve been hoping for a window of contemplative time to open – in order to officially inaugurate my new blog, and share with …
Reflections on the Dancing Journey
Thanks for visiting my blog at The Dancing Word. We’re just finishing up the final touches on this brand new site, and more blogs will be found here soon. Thanks for coming and please come back again soon. Until then, you can learn more about who I am here.
Welcome to my new blog!
