I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Katharine Weinmann’s reflection and poem Courting the Mystic and the Muse.
Five years ago, with the onset of Covid–19, and grieving the abrupt end of a professional career I had cherished, I found my way to writing poetry. The intensive online retreats hosted by Christine and Abbey of the Arts provided the emotional support, compassionate community, intellectual stimulation, and skillful scaffolding I needed for my self-study into this creative expression. Despite that prolonged period of uncertain, even fearful, solitude, I was inspired to write and make art in the journals I kept with each retreat. Revised, refined and polished, many of those early poems have since been published and several will be included in my forthcoming debut collection, Skyborne Insight, Homemade Love.
Below is one that emerged from my participation in “Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist,” the twelve–week online retreat, first offered in Fall 2020. I owe a debt of gratitude to Christine and the Abbey of the Arts community for providing the creative and contemplative container in which I, and so many, flourished then, and now in these continuously harrowing times. With a deep bow…
Courting the Mystic and the Muse
This ordinary place
My Holy Enough.
This ordinary life
My Holy Everything.
Guide me, oh Beloved, that
my eyes may see the shimmer
to be revealed though photography,
my hand may write the words
to be shared through poem and story,
my hands may prepare the food
to be savoured through home–cooking.
Invite me, oh Beloved, into living
my life as poem and prayer,
and that with Beauty named,
become Holy Alchemy
for love and justice.
Published internationally in literary journals and anthologies, Katharine Weinmann writes poetry, walks long distances, sees beauty in life’s imperfections and photographs its shimmer. She blogs at A Wabi Sabi Life and lives with her husband and their dog, Walker, on the Canadian prairies.
