October 6, 2008 · by Christine
Our 25th Poetry Party and over a year of poetic inspiration! I had no idea when I began these how meaningful they would become to me and to those of you who participate by writing or reading. Thank you for the wonderful creative community that forms around each of these.
I select an image and suggest a title and invite you to respond with your poems, words, reflections, quotes, song lyrics, etc. Leave them in the comments or email me and I’ll add them to the body of the post as they come in along with a link back to your blog if you have one (not required to participate!) I’ll add your contributions all week and then I will draw a name at random on Friday morning from everyone who participates and will send the winner a special prize in honor of my 25th Poetry Party — a signed copy of my new book Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening and Awareness . Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog and encourage others to come join the party!
This week’s theme is simple, I invite you to write a poem celebrating the gift of the written word in your life.
The photos below were taken this past summer in the library at Melk Benedictine Abbey in Austria (to see the library, click on the link in the righthand sidebar that says “The Abbey museum, marble hall, library, church” and then click “Library.”)
From their website: “In the order of importance of the rooms in a Benedictine monastery, the library comes second only to the church” –another reason I love the monastic tradition!
*****
LECTIO DIVINA
“is like one organic process with four moments —
reading, meditating, praying, and contemplating —
flowing naturally into one another.”
—
Being -
Consciousness -
Bliss -
Behold! the kingdom of God is within you!
—
(Luke 17:21)
-submitted by kigen
*****
-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts
(Mosaic created using Flickr Toys)
Posted in Poetry Party Invitation | 1 Comment »
October 5, 2008 · by Christine
Go see the delightful collage lucy made inspired by reading from my book! You can order your own copy here. For those of you looking for a creative twist on an ancient practice, there is an entire chapter on using lectio to pray contemplatively with art, music, life experience and more as well as using art-making to respond to your lectio divina experience.
Come back tomorrow for a very special 25th Poetry Party!
PS — if you are thinking of joining us for the Contemplative Art & Movement Retreat let me know– there is only one spot left! Register here.
Posted in Fun | 2 Comments »
October 4, 2008 · by Christine
Praised be You my Lord with all Your creatures -Francis of Assisi
(dogs encountered across Austria, swan in Hallstatt, Austria)
Posted in Nature, Mystics and Saints | 9 Comments »
October 3, 2008 · by Christine
Two weeks ago I went to a Shabbat dinner at the home of my good friend who is also a rabbi. On occasion she will invite her “women of faith” friends to celebrate this welcoming in of the Sabbath so central to Jewish life and ritual. There we were, one Jewish rabbi, one Benedictine Oblate, two ordained Methodist ministers, and two Tibetan Buddhists (one of whom has taken robes).
We gathered around the table lighting the Shabbat candles while singing a Buddhist mantra. We read the prayers in Hebrew, washed our hands, and broke the challah bread and drank wine. As my friend introduced the hand washing ritual, she said in Jewish tradition because the temple and priests are no more, the table has become the altar and we are all the celebrants. Yes, my heart said. This is the way it is supposed to be. The table at home is the altar where we gather friends and strangers together, are nourished in body by the gifts of the earth and in soul by the conversation and care shared by those who have gathered, and slowly there are strangers no more.
I was in the midst of a Jewish Shabbat service, but I knew in that moment that this was also my act of holy communion. With everyone at that table, we became one body.
Shabbat Shalom my friends. May you discover the experience of true communion around your table. May you be nourished in body and soul.
** ADDED — in a nice bit of synchronicity, Jan Richardson offers a beautiful collage and blessing on sharing sacred meals and Laure at Weaving the Hours has a lovely post on the same theme as well. **
-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts
(photo taken in a synagogue in Vienna)
** Come back on Monday for our 25th Poetry Party! **
Posted in Contemplative Living | 9 Comments »
October 1, 2008 · by Christine
In Greece,
a long time ago,
an old couple
opened their door
to two strangers
who were,
it soon appeared,
not men at all,
but gods.
It is my favorite story–
how the old couple
had almost nothing to give
but their willingness
to be attentive–
but for this alone
the gods loved them
and blessed them–
when they rose
out of their mortal bodies,
like a million particles of water
from a fountain,
the light
swept into all the corners
of the cottage,
and the old couple,
shaken with understanding,
bowed down–
but still they asked for nothing
but the difficult life
which they had already.
And the gods smiled, as they vanished,
clapping their great wings.
-Mary Oliver, from Mockingbirds
-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts
Posted in Visual Meditation | 4 Comments »
September 30, 2008 · by Christine
Last night at sunset, on the night of the new moon — the time when we return to promordial darkness – the High Holy Day of Rosh Hashanah began. It is the Jewish New Year and begins the ten days of awe ending with Yom Kippur. It is a time of introspection, of reflecting on the year that has past, a time to consider how you have wronged others and to seek forgiveness.
In my yoga class yesterday morning, my teacher began with a meditation in honor of this time. We were asked to think back on the year that had passed and ask ourselves if there was someone with whom we were unkind or caused some harm through our words or actions, someone whom we might need to ask forgiveness. Then we were asked to reflect on who has hurt us this past year, to whom we might need to offer forgiveness.
I was surprised at the people that came to mind in that space of silence. I offered the peace that my yoga class brought to me back to them, both the person I have wronged and the person who has wronged me. They were connected to me and to each other in that moment, enmeshed in the human web of brokenness and longing for wholeness. In that space some healing began.
I invite you to take a few moments of your day to join with our Jewish sisters and brothers and reflect on the places in your life that need some forgiveness extended. When have you wronged someone? For what do you need to ask forgiveness? How have you been wronged? Is it possible right now to extend forgiveness for these hurts?
-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts
(photo taken at Golden Gardens beach last Saturday)
Posted in Photos | 5 Comments »
September 28, 2008 · by Christine
What does real life look like to you in your best moments, your quiet moments? What is it that you yourself actually want–down deep–and how much are you willing to give up to get it? What really gives you life? It’s time to consider what makes a thing life-giving and the point when even the life-giving becomes death-dealing for you.
Then it is time to define life differently, perhaps. It’s the moment to put down what it is we’re doing that can be done but does not really need to be done, at least not by us. We need to ask ourselves what it is that we really do not want to do so that everything else we do can be done with more energy, more quality, more inner peace. . .
. . . In the whirlwind of life, in the hurly-burly of things and people and work, we risk the loss of life itself. We risk the loss of focus. Suddenly, we one day realize, we don’t know what our lives are actually about anymore, except that they are about too much. We risk the loss of relationships. We get too busy, too scattered, to attend to the truly human intimacies we need if we are to stay in touch with what it means to be human. We risk the loss of balance. We risk the loss of direction. We risk the loss of what Hindu spirituality points ot most clearly and what the mystics of all traditions confront us with age after ag–total absorption in the Ultimate Mystery of life. . .
. . . (Reflection) is about the concentrated activity of being full human, of giving our gifts in ways that develop us rather than fragment us.
-from Welcome to the Wisdom of the World by Joan Chittister (p. 6-7) (emphases mine)
I was reading Chittister’s book a bit yesterday and this section really stood out for me. For all of my adult life I seem to be forever caught in an endless stream of creative ideas and projects that call out to me for attention. And yet, while all of these are very good things, to try and do them all leads me to the experience that what seems life-giving becomes death-dealing, as Chittister wisely says. Sometimes we need to close doors. Often we need to say no to the many very good things in favor of the best things. The paradox is that our freedom can come through self-imposed limitations.
Of course, the ancient mystics knew this. Monastic traditions wisely offer an array of practices to help narrow our focus so that in our relinquishment of some things we may discover the most important things of all.
Deepening my Sabbath practice has been a gift in so many ways. In that breathing space I am reminded of the delights of being and playing, I reclaim the things that bring me joy because I have the gift of space to really consider where I want to focus my energy. I discover the freedom that comes in being very intentional about what I say yes to and what I say no to. I am reminded again and again that writing and art-making are my heart’s passions and there are many distractions so they don’t end up as the day’s priorities. And that must change. Today.
Are there some seemingly life-giving things right now that you might be wiser to say no to? Are you involved with work that someone else could do just as well? Where is the call to freedom leading you right now?
-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts
(photo is of Freedom Monument in Riga Latvia, with a seagull standing on one of the stars)
Posted in Spirituality | 10 Comments »
September 26, 2008 · by Christine
. . . Milton at Don’t Eat Alone. Milton send me your snail mail and I will send you a copy of Praying with the Elements.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the Poetry Party, a wonderful showing this week in celebration of autumn. The next one will be on Monday, October 6th. It will be our 25th Poetry Party and over a year of poetic expression so I am thinking up something special!
In the meantime, blessed Sabbath and come back Monday for more reflections!
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September 26, 2008 · by Christine
On returning from our summer travels I recommitted myself to a deeper exploration of two practices — Sabbath-keeping and yoga. I believe so strongly in the power of Sabbath, as a witness to a different way of being in the world, as an act of humility that says the world will get by if I lay down my work for a while, as a time to remember who we were created to be.
Moving more deeply into a yoga practice is really a reclaiming for me of something that once played a more significant role in my life. There are many reasons it had become less central for me, but now the invitation is to enter into the heart of yoga again. I discovered a yoga center in Seattle that truly lives out yoga philosophy and serves the community in important ways. The classes really are about yoga, not exercise. It is a place where I feel truly at home.
Each class we explore principles like satya (truth) or ahimsa (nonviolence) as it applies to our practice. We cultivate our inner witness to observe our internal responses to what is happening in our bodies and on the mat. The inner witness is the part of ourselves that watches the flow of our emotional landscape with presence, wisdom, and compassion. We are encouraged to listen to our bodies’ needs in a given moment and see if we can respond with love and kindness rather than push through.
But perhaps most important to any yoga practice are those last few minutes when we lay in shavasana or corpse pose. I have often heard it said that this is the most important pose of all, because this is the place where all that has come before is integrated. In this place of rest we can bring all of our striving and work to a place of wholeness.
It struck me last week while lying on my mat in those few still moments that Sabbath serves much the same function. During Sabbath we enter into rest and stillness, releasing our doing, and offer ourselves a time to integrate the blessings and challenges of the week into our psyches. Just as the other poses don’t hold meaning without that final pose of rest, so our work becomes an exercise in endless futility if we never offer ourselves those times to integrate, to bring in all of our experience and doing and allow ourselves to be for a while. We become like the strong vine, firmly rooted in the soil and bearing much fruit.
Shabbat Shalom my friends. May the peace of Sabbath and Shavasana be yours.
-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts
(photo taken in Latvia this summer)
PS - I will draw the name for the winner of the Poetry Party drawing later this afternoon, so you still have time to enter. 26 marvelous poems and counting!
Posted in Contemplative Living | 4 Comments »
September 23, 2008 · by Christine
Song For the Salmon
For too many days now I have not written of the sea,
nor the rivers, nor the shifting currents
we find between the islands
For too many nights now I have not imagined the salmon
threading the dark streams of reflected stars,
nor have I dreamt of his longing
nor the lithe swing of his tail toward dawn
I have not given myself to the depth to which he goes,
to the cargoes of crystal water, cold with salt,
nor the enormous plains of ocean swaying beneath the moon.
I have not felt the lifted arms of the ocean
opening its white hands on the seashore,
nor the salted wind, whole and healthy
filling the chest with living air.
I have not heard those waves
fallen out of heaven onto earth,
nor the tumult of sound and the satisfaction
of a thousand miles of ocean
giving up its strength on the sand.
But now I have spoken of that great sea,
the ocean of longing shifts through me,
the blessed inner star of navigation
moves in the dark sky above
and I am ready like the young salmon
to leave his river, blessed with hunger
for a great journey on the drawing tide.
-David Whyte
-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts
(photos from the Salmon Homecoming Festival 2008 in Seattle)
* Make sure to visit this week’s Poetry Party *
Posted in Visual Meditation | 9 Comments »
