Welcome and Willkommen here.
I am Almut, a German (sometimes lost) in America, mother, scholar, practitioner, sometimes dancing monk, sometimes weary pilgrim. But most of all I am a seeker.
Also a psychologist turned philosopher turned writer and retreat leader I have written for academic publications and practical applications alike. My main research interest have been the pain points of human kind: Suffering, despair, personal formation and spiritual integration.
I am influenced by European authors like S Kierkegaard, M Buber, K Jaspers, and the medieval renaissance woman Hildegard of Bingen.
Why Cloister Notes?
I have been always fascinated by monastic places, their sacred architecture, which quietens the soul and sustains the spirit; and also by their ability to cherish intellectually inquiry as much as spiritual practice and soul care.
Most of all I have cherished cloisters as places where a weary pilgrim like me can find retreat.
For the last years I have written on www.cloisterseminars.org, a platform I founded for offering retreats and seminars and a community for people like us, who long for integrating mind and heart and spirit. Our Cloister Seminars is also the home for our 12 Days of Christmas Contemplations, our Passion Consolations, the Hildegard Seminar, the Kierkegaard Masterclass and some more.
Longing for integration and wholeness
My husband and I have spend much time in monasteries, for writing and for replenishing. In fact, our daughter accompanied us on these stays already in utero. We also spend a full sabbatical in a monastic community in Germany.
Though monasteries also carry some ugly history they have been always at the forefront of scientific discovery, too, all embedded in a deep concern for the human condition and its spiritual roots.
Being trained both a psychologist and a philosopher at German universities I have become deeply upset with the fragmentation of education which produces expertise but lost the bigger picture. How can psychology do without philosophy, I was desperately asking, and philosophy without theology and theology without therapy?
Though we speak much about integration and interdisciplinary approaches these days I was utterly left alone back then both at the psychology department and later with the philosophers to achieve such an integration.
And friends, this divide is not only an academic one. It is a very personal, too. Our mind often says what our heart does not feel and our body feels what the mind does not want to see. We all long for wholeness, to bring down the walls we build around our heart, don’t we?
Bringing together what has been fragmented and splintered and broken in order to heal the divide has been my passion since.
Why subscribe?
Thus with Cloister notes I envision is a place where heart and mind can mingle. Where words create meaning and deepening takes time. Where we allow ourselves to hold our being human, inspired by monastic wisdom, contemplative practice and the Benedictine motto to hold together the love of learning and the desire for God.
I am a newcomer to substack (just figured out to import my blog, so scroll the archives!) hoping to find fellow pilgrims eager to journey together with me and see where it will lead is.
Will you help me build this space?
Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and website. Never miss an update.Paid subscribers will also get free access to our signature online retreats, and some notes and pondering in-between.
Thank you
for considering to walk along with me and to hold me accountable! For now I plan to write weekly letters inspired by the season, personal stirrings and life’s questions. Half retreat, half reflection, always a breathing space, to find consolation in a pained world.
If you enjoy reads which invites you into a deeper reflection of who we are in this world, paired with meditations in image and world, and always a consolation or blessings at the end, I am looking forward to welcome you on this venture.
With Cloister Notes I hope to create a sanctuary in a loud world, a retreat space for all who need some consolation, and a gathering space for body, soul and spirit.
With love, Almut
PS: Go ahead, challenge me and become a paid subscriber right away :-) Paid subscribers will become part of our signature retreats: The 12 Days of Christmas, and Passion Week Consolations. I also envision a column on reader questions.
About Almut
Almut Furchert, Dr. phil., Dipl. Psych. is a German American scholar and practitioner, a psychologist turned philosopher turned writer, traveler, photographer, retreat leader and mother of a pre-schooler. She is also a Benedictine Oblate and lives with her family in a little college town in MN.
