Tess at Anchors and Masts has a great post about the Feast of Beltane along with music by one of my favorite musicians, so go take a peek.
It seems appropriate that on this day I would be heading from Seattle over to the Eastside to gather with 2000 women. The Northwest Women’s Convocation happens every few years and is an amazing confluence of voice, power, and hope. I will have an exhibit table next to the Priory Bookstore so I can sign my lectio divina books, share information about the programs I lead, and sell my journals.
Tomorrow is my 3-Year Bloggiversary! Love notes and blessings are more than welcome either in the comments or by email. I relish hearing from you, my amazing and gifted readers, about what brings you back to the Abbey and what you would like to see more of.
Remember that we have an amazing Poetry Party still in process this week. Go visit, linger over the words, leave supportive comments for the poets, compose some of your own and submit them, and then look over the list of 10 different ways you can be entered to win by Special Grand Prize — a set of five of my Reflective Art Journals (see below for repeat of the information). I would greatly appreciate any help in spreading the word! (Plus my SPRING SALE is being extended through Sunday as well — your chance to order multiple copies at a discount!)
After you have made your entries, send me a note telling me the number of ways you participated so I make sure not to miss any of them. The Drawing will be on Sunday, so you still have a couple more days to participate.
*************************
Help to celebrate and support the Abbey!
There are Ten (10!) Ways to earn entries in this Very Special Drawing for a set of Five Reflective Art Journals (one of each available issue)! The drawing will happen on Sunday, May 3rd!
Please send me an email by May 3 with a list of entries to Christine@AbbeyoftheArts.com so I make sure not to miss anyone. Only new comments, poems, and links that are submitted between April 27 and May 3 qualify! I will draw the name of the winner on Sunday, May 3!
Pour yourself a cup of tea and ponder this question. Notice what the image stirs in you. Then go visit this week’s Poetry Party, and savor the poetic treasures gathered there. Then write your own poem and enter for your chance to win a prize! There are several ways to enter and the drawing will be on Sunday. Thank you to everyone who has been so generous with supportive comments for each other as well.
I’ll be at the Northwest Women’s Convocation Friday and Saturday with an exhibit table to talk about my work and sell my journals. Please stop by and say hello if you are attending. It will be an amazing time!
“It is this activity of working through disintegration that I consider to be at the core of the creative and therapeutic processes. I call this act “poesis” (following Heidegger’s use of the Greek word for poetry), and consider it to be at the center of human existence.
“It is essential to human being to fall apart, to fragment, disintegrate, and to experience the despair that comes with lack of wholeness. To what can we turn, then, ion this moment of crisis? I believe it is at this critical moment that the possibility of creative living arises. If we can let go of our previous identities and move into the experience of the void, then the possibility arises for new forms of existence to emerge. Poiesis, the creative act, occurs as the death and re-birth of the soul. . . We are called upon constantly to re-form ourselves, to engage in what James Hillman calls ’soul-making’ . . .
“Poiesis as integrative affirmation emerges always into form. This the connection between soul-making and the arts, ‘poetry’ as a generic term for artistic activity. The soul finds its form in art.” (emphasis mine)
I discovered this quote while working this morning on my book about using expressive arts in spiritual direction. This is exactly why I do the work I do.
Visit this week’s Poetry Party for your own dose of creative living!
I select an image and suggest a title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. If you have your own blog, please use the Mister Linky widget below to add a link back to your website. If you don’t have your own blog (not required to participate) or if you just want to post your poem here, please skip Mister Linky and go straight to the comments section to add your poem. Make sure to check the comments for new poems added and I encourage you to leave encouraging comments for each other either here or at the poet’s own blog.
Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog if you have one and encourage others to come join the party! (permission is granted to reprint the image if a link is provided back to this post)
*~* This week there is a Very Special Drawing! In honor of my Three-Year Bloggiversary coming up on May 2nd I am going to send someone a very special prize – a set of five of my Reflective Art Journals (one of each available issue) AND there are 10 ways for you to earn extra entries in the drawing (please see below). You have until Sunday, May 3rd to enter! *~*
*************************
The Poetry Party Theme:
I am writing a book right now on using the four elements of earth, fire, wind, and water as doorways into a greater intimacy with creation and God. These spring days the earth is flowering and flourishing in the northern hemisphere and we recently celebrated Earth Day. So I am inviting you to write poems in honor of the gift of earth and the ways God is revealed to you through stone or mountain, flower or fruit. Let this be your hymn of praise to creation.
When I was in Ireland two years ago I fell in love with the stones which marked the landscape as boundaries to mark property, as ancient tombs like Newgrange honoring the dead, and as stone circles which date from 7000-3500 BC. These filled me with awe and wonder as windows onto an ancient people and their recognition of the enduring power of stone. Stories fill these rocks and they sing of a God who offers us solidity and a glimpse of the eternal.
(photo of a stone circle in the Gleninchaquin Valley on the Beara Peninsula in Ireland)
_____________________________________
** MISTER LINKY has been causing problems with this page loading so sadly I had to remove it **
_____________________________________
Help to celebrate and support the Abbey!
There are Ten (10!) Ways to earn entries in this Very Special Drawing for a set of Five Reflective Art Journals (one of each available issue)! The drawing will happen on Sunday, May 3rd!
1) submit a poem to the Poetry Party above (counts as two entries)
2) leave a comment below for any of the poets (each comment earns an entry)
3) become a fan of the Abbey on Facebook
4) follow this blog on Facebook
5) friend me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter
6) post this give-away & Poetry Party on Facebook or Twitter or your own blog
7) sign up for the Abbey Email newsletter (sent twice monthly with reflections)
8)make a purchase from the Abbey Shop (one entry for each item purchased and I currently have a sale going on)
9) post a review of Lectio Divina or Illuminating Mystery on Amazon (these earn you double entries! be the first and it will count as five!)
10) post a link to my Lectio Divina book on Amazon (at your blog, Twitter, or FB)
Please send me an email by May 3 with a list of entries to Christine@AbbeyoftheArts.com so I make sure not to miss anyone. Only new comments, poems, and links that are submitted between April 27 and May 3 qualify! I will draw the name of the winner on Sunday, May 3!
I took the last
dusty piece of china
out of the barrel.
It was your gravy boat,
with a hard, brown
drop of gravy still
on the porcelain lip.
I grieved for you then
as I never had before.
-Jane Kenyon
The photo is of me as a young girl sitting on my father’s shoulder. I have shared some of my journey with him here before – his layers of addiction, his inability to offer unconditional love, his narrowness of vision. This is a part of my inheritance that I continue to name and own. His grief and despair flow through me, rising and falling like the tide, and I make space for them within me.
Joy and wonder are there too. I hold the objects that belonged to him like a talisman pressed into my palm, pointing me in the direction of a wide landscape of unlived possibility. I follow this compass for him and for all of my ancestors who were bound by fear and a rejection of their deepest longings. I live into my own delight for his healing and for my own.
My father died just over 13 years ago. Last summer I journeyed to the land of his birth, a place he had to flee at age twelve, not knowing he would never return again. There I encountered the vulnerable little boy he once was. A boy who walked barefoot along the edges of the Baltic Sea, whose heart must once have been as wide as the ocean and raced with excitement in his chest in wonder at the beauty of it all. And I discovered he is still very much alive, running across hot summer sand, relishing the cool breeze through his damp hair, arms spread wide, eyes closed, turning slowly. In quiet moments I turn with him, revolving around a stillpoint within, and I hear him whispering that he is free, that I am free.
Let us remember within us
The ancient clay,
Holding the memory of seasons,
The passion of the wind,
The fluency of water,
The warmth of fire,
The quiver-touch of the sun
And shadowed sureness of the moon.
That we may awaken,
To live to the full
The dream of the Earth
Who chose us to emerge
And incarnate its hidden night
In mind, spirit, and light.
The last few days have been rich, moving in me in ways I have yet to name. The hermit part of my soul is asking for some nurturning right now before I speak too much about what is stirring.
In the meantime I continue to receive gifts. I discovered this video at 37 Days (Patti Digh’s blog). It is poet Andrea Gibson reciting her powerful poem “Say Yes”. You can find the words here, but first listen to her speak them aloud. In the space of three minutes I felt myself both moved to tears and rising up in powerful hope.
And for more inspiration to say yes to creativity and spirit, make sure to read this week’s Sacred Artist Interview.
(and for those of you who have wanted to order my book, Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening and Awareness from Amazon, it is now back in stock. Order it for the extensive chapter on using lectio to pray with the arts.)
Sybil Archibald, also know as Painter of Blue, has a blog dedicated to spirituality and art and loves medieval illuminations (so you know I was going to like her right from the start). She has even co-authored a book called Lapis and Gold, on reclaiming the original tools and methods of medieval artists. We have only been recently introduced through this virtual world, but she is most certainly a kindred spirit and has been gracious enough to respond to my interview questions for the benefit of you, my dear readers.
Read on for more sacred wisdom:
____________________________________________
Are you rooted in a particular faith tradition?
I was raised in a family of agnostics but, from an early age I always felt a deep connection to God and to the Virgin Mary. I have spent much of my life searching for a home for that connection without success. It was in hopes of finding Mary that I began to study medieval mystics in college. First Christian mystics like Hildegard of Bingen, Eckhart, & Bonaventure then mystics from other traditions like Plotinus, Ibn Arabi, & Moses de Leon. As I immersed myself deeply in the study of mysticism, my connection to the Divine grew stronger. Through the School of Sacred Arts in NYC I studied the sacred practice of Icon writing and danced the ziker with Sufis. Later I studied for a conversion to Judaism. I know prayers in Hebrew, in Arabic & Latin but have never found a spiritual home in the rules and rituals of one religion. But my devotion to Mary has never wavered.
How do you experience the connection between spirituality and creativity?
They are one, as inseparable as 2 sides of one coin. All creativity springs from a deep eternal well brimming with the generative nature of the Divine. The source of creativity is the source of everything. So by connecting to our creativity we connect directly with Divine Light. As artists and human beings, we have a responsibility to this Light. We are sacred vessels bearing Divinity, spilling it into a needy world. Where we hold back, we hold God back. My journey has been to heal myself & to dissolve internal blockages so that I may be a larger vessel to carry Divine creative energy into the world. And I still have a lot of work to do!
What role does spiritual practice have in your art-making?
Spirituality is the process of deepening my relationship to God. It means healing myself to remove my intimacy issues with the Divine, much as one would do with their own spouse. In 1992 I was diagnosed with a rare auto immune disorder called scleroderma. I have been quite ill off and on. But I am incredibly grateful for my illness because it has helped me to empty. I was so small and petty before, so angry and closed. Now, I still have work to do, but there is space for the Divine to enter that did not exist before.
Making art is one of the major ways that I process my blocks and release them. I hit the wall when I work. I feel the fear of exposing myself, of going too far, or losing myself in God. Then I have to stop and set down my brush or clay. I must be still and enter into in fear to come out the other side. Only then can my work be completed. This is not the process of pushing through fear, it is the process of accepting and honoring myself. Only in that state of stillness and connection to our Maker can fear truly be released.
What sparked your spiritual journey?
My conscious spiritual journey began one summer in my early 20s when I had a vision of the Virgin Mary sending me brilliant blue light. You can find the whole experience detailed on my blog, Art of the Spirit, here I will just say that I prayed for the Light. I asked for it, and yet I did not understand how it would come to rule my whole life. Only now, 20 years later, have I created enough space in my frail earthen vessel to contain even a drop of this light. My illness was bequeathed to me by the Light as a gift to teach me to open. Every moment of my life conscious or not (mostly not!) has been unwrapped from that eternal instant. I see the Light now, as bright as ever, exhorting me on to create so It may enter more fully into this world.
What sparked your artistic journey? What is your primary art medium?
I have spent every moment of my life as an artist. I began by playing with clay as a child and will return to clay when I die. Right now I focus on sculpting in clay, painting & etching. For many years, I specialized in manuscript illumination techniques because they are the perfect marriage of the medieval mystics and art. I made all my own art supplies from natural materials. For example, I made paints from stones such as malachite & azurite, plants such as indigo & madder, animal sources like bugs and bones & from colored clays. Every process in manuscript illumination is deeply link to a spiritual process (See here for an example). These techniques taught me about the deep connection between the earth, the body & the Divine. I’ve written a book about these techniques and the spirituality surrounding them with Karen Gorst called Lapis & Gold: Unlocking the Secrets of Medieval Painters & Illuminators.
Do you have a particular process you use when entering into your creative work?
I strive to let go of myself as I enter into my work. Ancient mystics tell us that there is nothing that is not God. I respect the Divine energy in the material world from the dirt beneath my feet to the stars in the sky. When I work, I seek guidance from the Divine spirit in matter. I allow my materials to lead me on my path to a finished piece, not my ideas or preconceptions about what “I” want to create. When I begin, I always pray, “Dear God/Goddess/All That Is, I am open that I may be filled, lead me on.”
How does your art-making shape your image of God?
My ultimate goal is to release any image of God because any image or word is a construct which hems the Divine in. Making art allows me to be free of images and thoughts, to exist in the present moment and meet the Divine. This is true intimacy, the soul in the arms of its Maker.
____________________________________________
An abundance of gratitude to Sybil for these beautiful words. She is indeed poet as well as artist. As I am reading, I am moved by her connection to Mary as she embraces different traditions and by her willingness to surrender to fully to become a vessel of divine light. Make sure to visit her website, where you will find her blog (worth putting in your feedreader), more of her art, and of course the book she mentions above.
What stirs in you in response to these words and images?
Happy May Day!
A Note
What Came to Me
. Some of you may remember that I had some recent encounters with relics during Lent (
Are you rooted in a particular faith tradition?
How do you experience the connection between spirituality and creativity?
What role does spiritual practice have in your art-making?
What sparked your spiritual journey?
What sparked your artistic journey? What is your primary art medium?
