(photos of the stunning oak trees taken in Audubon Park in New Orleans) 
-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts
** Make sure to visit this week’s Poetry Party — one more day to submit your poem and be entered into the drawing to win a set of Spring Prayer Cards **

Posted in Visual Meditation | 6 Comments »

I have been a fan of Jan Richardson’s work for a long time.  Her books In Wisdom’s Path: Discovering the Sacred in Every Season and Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas are two of my favorites because of their combining of word and image. Unfortunately the latter of those two is only available […]

Posted in Sacred Artist Interview | 9 Comments »

“But when the shadow is given conscious recognition we will find that it has much of positive value to add to our personality, often giving us the earthiness, or instinctuality, or zest for living, or humility that is exactly what we need to complement our personality and become a complete human being.” -John A. Sanford, Dreams: […]

Posted in Photos, Poetry, Abbey Bookshelf | 4 Comments »

I spent the last several days in New Orleans at a meeting for Loyola’s adjunct faculty in their ministry extension program.  I began this role in the fall so this was my first time at their campus, even though I used to do some group facilitation for them while living in the Sacramento Diocese.  It was […]

Posted in Lent | 5 Comments »

Poetry Party lucky number 13!  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 […]

Posted in Poetry Invitation | 22 Comments »

H.M. offered this 6 Word Memoir Meme to his readers: try to write your whole life story in just six words.  I am doing a slight variation, in that trying to encompass the whole of my life so succinctly feels overwhelming.  But while at this conference I am attending, someone asked me what is the […]

Posted in Fun | 13 Comments »

*
*
* 
Dropping Keys
The small man
Builds cages for everyone
He
Knows.
While the sage,
Who has to duck his head
When the moon is low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long
For the
Beautiful
Rowdy
Prisoners.
-Hafiz
*
*
*
*
(a simple meditation this week — photo is of a collection I have of old keys from Austria) 
-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts
** Come back Monday for our next Poetry Party […]

Posted in Photos, Poetry, Visual Meditation | 6 Comments »

I first met Maggie Yowell when she came to me for spiritual direction and then later she participated in our Awakening the Creative Spirit program.  It was more of a continued nurturing in the program since she had long been awakened through her work in SoulCollage, both as artist and facilitator of the process.  In […]

Posted in Sacred Artist Interview | 5 Comments »

I adore poetry and often find it to be a source of profound wisdom as valuable to me as other sacred texts. I sometimes write them myself and post them, although they often stay tucked in the pages of my journal. I love to lead poetry-writing exercises in some of my retreat and training programs, and of course I adore hosting […]

Posted in Abbey Bookshelf | 7 Comments »

Moon
The moon is full tonight
an illustration for sheet music,
an image in Matthew Arnold
glimmering on the English Channel,
or a ghost over a smoldering battlefield
in one of the history plays.
It’s as full as it was
in that poem by Coleridge
where he carries his year-old son
into the orchard behind the cottage
and turns the baby’s face to the sky
to see […]

Posted in Creativity | 7 Comments »