About Us
About The Founders
Tessa Bielecki and Fr. Dave Denny have worked together for almost fifty years. They began as Carmelite monks in the Spiritual Life Institute where they co-edited Desert Call and gave retreats and workshops. At Colorado College they taught Fire and Light: A History of Christian Mysticism and Desert Spirituality: from the Middle East to the American Southwest.
They left monastic life in 2005 and created the Desert Foundation and now live in neighboring “urban hermitages” in Tucson, Arizona, in the spirit of the Christian Mothers and Fathers of the Desert.
Tessa recorded Wild at Heart: Radical Teachings of the Christian Mystics for Sounds True and is the author of three books on St. Teresa of Avila, most recently Holy Daring. Fr. Dave has served as chaplain for Image Journal’s Glen Workshops and Seattle Pacific University’s MFA writing residencies. He raises funds for Cross Catholic Outreach, a relief and development ministry for the poorest of the poor.
Both authors are currently writing their memoirs. They co-authored Season of Glad Songs: A Christmas Anthology and Desert Voices: The Edge Effect and continue to teach on Christian mysticism, desert spirituality, poetry, and the contemplative life in retreats and workshops.
About Tessa Bielecki
Tessa Bielecki represents three rich streams in the Christian contemplative tradition: Carmelite, Celtic, and the spirituality of the Desert Mothers and Fathers. For over fifty years, she lived in a solitary wilderness hermitage in the U.S., Canada, and Ireland, in deserts, mountains and woods.
She was the co-foundress and Mother Abbess of the Spiritual Life Institute, a monastic community of both men and women for almost forty years, left in 2005 and co-created the Desert Foundation, exploring desert wisdom and stories of hope, and fostering peace and understanding among the “Peoples of the Book,” Jews, Christians, and Muslims.
Tessa is a seasoned retreat facilitator, a forty-year veteran of interspiritual dialogue, and the author of numerous articles and several major works: Teresa of Avila: Mystical Writings, Holy Daring, Ecstasy and Common Sense, Season of Glad Songs: A Christmas Anthology, Desert Voices: The Edge Effect, and the Sounds True audio learning course, Wild at Heart: Radical Teachings of the Christian Mystics.
Now living as an “urban hermit” in Tucson, Arizona, Tessa is both poetic and practical, known for an earthy mysticism grounded in the ordinary. She is currently writing a memoir and designing her own web site. You will find recent podcasts at Messy Jesus Business and Contemplify, her e-course on the Christian mystics here, and a webinar on interspirituality here.
Read Tessa's full story
Tessa Bielecki was born in Norwich, Connecticut on September 16, 1944. From early childhood she loved the diverse peoples and cultures around our planet and studied Russian and French at Trinity College in Washington D.C., preparing for a career in international relations.
Her dream took a more spiritual turn when she met Fr. William McNamara in 1965 and with him co-founded the Spiritual Life Institute. With a brave band of fellow-monks, she helped create a monastic community and four retreat centers over four decades: Nada Hermitage in Sedona, Arizona in the 1960s (lost to land developers in 1981), Nova Nada Hermitage in Kemptville, Nova Scotia, Canada in the 1970s (lost to logging development in 1998), Nada Carmelite Hermitage in Crestone, Colorado in the 1980s (closed and sold in 2020), and Holy Hill Hermitage in Skreen, County Sligo, Ireland in the 1990s.
After serving as Mother Abbess of these centers and traveling between them for almost 40 years, Tessa left monastic life in 2003. In 2005, with friend and colleague, Fr. David Denny, she created The Desert Foundation, a small informal Circle of Friends exploring the wisdom of the desert and the inner desert of loss and grief, offering stories of hope in a welcoming tent of meeting.
With Fr. Dave she was an adjunct professor at Colorado College for almost fifteen years, teaching courses on Fire and Light: A History of Christian Mysticism and Sand and Sky: Desert Spirituality from the Middle East to the American Southwest.
Tessa is a seasoned retreat leader and the author of numerous articles and several major works: Teresa of Avila: Mystical Writings, Holy Daring, Ecstasy and Common Sense, Season of Glad Songs: A Christmas Anthology, Desert Voices: The Edge Effect, and the Sounds True audio learning course, Wild at Heart: Radical Teachings of the Christian Mystics. She is currently working on a memoir and designing her own web site. You will find recent podcasts at Messy Jesus Business and Contemplify, her e-course on the Christian mystics here, and a webinar on interspirituality here.
Fulfilling her dream of more peaceful international relations but from a more spiritual perspective, Tessa has years of experience with interspiritual dialogue, most notably with Buddhists throughout the 1980s at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. She has led pilgrimages to Spain, Italy, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, and visited Russia, Mexico, Germany, Denmark and The Netherlands, where she participated in symposiums called Women for Peace and Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a Changing Economy.
She had the privilege of speaking three times at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and was part of the Lindisfarne Fellowship during its early years in Crestone, Colorado. She was also a member of the first group who met in Rio de Janeiro to draft the Earth Charter. Under the auspices of the Embrace Foundation, she represented Christianity in a gathering of major world religions at the United Nations Chapel.
Tessa now lives as an “urban hermit” close to her beloved Saguaro Cactus in Tucson, Arizona. She loves not only her eremitical silence and solitude, but the full four seasons of the year, colors and flowers, big earrings, good food and drink, cooking and celebrating with friends, and serving wherever she is needed, especially writing, and facilitating retreats and workshops.
About David Denny
David M. Denny describes himself as “poet, priest, and desert rat.” After graduating from the University of Arizona, intending to become a journalist or scholar of interreligious studies, he made a retreat at the Spiritual Life Institute in Sedona, Arizona. His original plan for graduate studies was interrupted by becoming a contemplative Carmelite monk for thirty years.
He was ordained to the priesthood in 1980 and fulfilled his journalism dream by editing the community’s Desert Call quarterly magazine. He continues to serve as a priest through Cross Catholic Outreach, a ministry providing material and spiritual support to the poorest of the poor in over thirty countries.
Since co-founding the Desert Foundation with Tessa Bielecki in 2005, he fulfills his call to interspiritual dialogue through his writings. When not at his computer, you will find him biking along the Santa Cruz River, ambling among the Saguaros, or shooting hoops in the early hours across the street from his “urban hermit” apartment.
Read David's full story
A native of Indiana, David Denny moved to Arizona in 1969. In the summer of 1970, at the age of 17, he was an exchange student in Afghanistan. This kindled a lifelong interest in the Middle East, especially the Abrahamic spiritual traditions. In 1974 he earned his BA in Asian Studies, with an emphasis on Middle Eastern history and Arabic at the University of Arizona.
In 1975, having discovered Thomas Merton and converted to Roman Catholicism. He entered the Spiritual Life Institute, a contemplative monastic community rooted in the Carmelite tradition. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1980 and is incardinated in the Diocese of Killala, County Mayo, Ireland.
From 1985-2004 he was co-editor of Desert Call, the Institute’s quarterly magazine. In 1987 he spent six weeks serving as a priest in a remote fishing village in northeastern Brazil. From 1993-2006 he was a visiting professor at Colorado College, teaching Fire and Light: A History of Christian Mysticism.
In 2005 Fr. Dave left the Spiritual Life Institute and, with Tessa Bielecki, co-founded The Desert Foundation. This informal circle of friends shares a passion for the desert, the Abrahamic faiths, and the spiritualities of the American Southwest. He served frequently as chaplain for Image Journal’s Glen Workshop. In 2005 and 2007 he taught Spiritual Quests in Literature at Colorado College and for ten years served as chaplain for Seattle Pacific University’s MFA spring residencies.
In August 2006 he led a seminar, “Grief and Belief; Rage and Surrender,” at the annual Glen Workshop. Participants reflected on elegies and other grief poems, on grief and faith, and examined the role of the Crucifixion and the Mother of Sorrows in the Hispanic art of the American Southwest. From 2007-2011, he and Tessa Bielecki taught Sand and Sky: Desert Spirituality from the Middle East to the American Southwest at Colorado College.
Fr. Dave published “Making the Soul Fertile,” a chapter in Meditations for InterSpiritual Wisdom, edited in 2011 by Netanel Miles-Yépez. In 2013 he co-authored Season of Glad Songs: A Christmas Anthology and in 2016 Desert Voices: The Edge Effect, both with Tessa Bielecki. A retreatmaster and poet, Fr. Dave is also an Outreach Preacher for Cross Catholic Outreach, a relief and development ministry for the poorest of the poor. In his spare time he is writing a memoir, How Did You Dawn?
In February 2020, Fr. Dave moved from his wilderness hermitage near Crestone, Colorado to become an “urban hermit” in Tucson, Arizona.