The Wisdom of Our Wounds: Chronic Illness and Spirituality
with Christine Valters Paintner and guest teachers Aisling Richmond, Claudia Love Mair, Jamie Marich, Melinda Thomas, Melissa Layer, Polly Paton-Brown, and Simon de Voil
Forum facilitators Aisling Richmond and Polly Paton-Brown
February 10 – March 27, 2027
Live Zoom opening gathering on Ash Wednesday, February 10th
3:00-4:30pm Ireland
10:00-11:30am Eastern
7:00-8:30am Pacific
Weekly live Zoom sessions on Mondays
3:30-4:30pm Ireland
10:30-11:30am Eastern
7:30-8:30am Pacific
** Please note: Due the difference in start days of Daylight Savings Time, for our UK participants the gatherings on March, 15th and 22nd begins at 2:30pm.
How do we practice loving witness with bodies that are experiencing chronic illness?
How do we hold the tension of our pain and suffering with the moments of grace that slowing down can offer?
Program Description
There are growing numbers of people experiencing chronic illness and pain (both physical and mental). Our western culture demands a relentless pace of production and many of us find our value in what we do. Expectations of independence, strength, power, invulnerability, striving, and perfection are set around able bodies. Ableism is destructive to all of us, forcing us into a way of being that is disconnected from our bodies, from the more than human world, and from one another.
In this system, healing is envisioned as cure, and those who don’t get better with medical treatment and positive thinking are dismissed. There are many justice issues around access to healthcare and accommodation for people’s limitations.
Our wisdom traditions, however, tell us that our wounds are doorways to a richer meaning. Our suffering is not the end of our story but a portal to a deeper alignment with our truest selves. Our wounds tell stories and call us into compassionate care for one another. Our wounds help to illuminate the places where collectively we can do better.
Those in chronically ill and painful bodies are unable to “keep up” with the destructive pace of capitalism. Their limitations and the growing number of people who are chronically ill, are a clarion call to our culture of brutal demands. They witness to the necessity for resistance. To the power of vulnerability. To the need for communities of care.
Spiritual practice is an act of imagination. When we embody particular ways of being, informed by ancient wisdom, we help to create a new world.
Join us for this 6-week series where we explore the ways spirituality can help to sustain us and how the experience of chronic illness can be a profound source of wisdom for how we live in the world.
This retreat is for anyone with a body (whether or not you have chronic illness) who wants to explore how embracing vulnerability, cultivating spaciousness, and listening for the wisdom our wounds offer can lead to a more vibrant and nourishing way of being.
A lovingly facilitated forum is also included in this live version of the retreat. Feel free to share what you are discovering with a community of kindred souls.
You have lifetime access to all online programs.
Guest Teacher Practices
Aisling Richmond: Contemplation, Healing, Nature, Integration
Aisling will draw on the wisdom of body, psyche and soul to support your transformative journey. She will weave together soulful reflections, somatic practices, and nature connection to help you to deepen and integrate your experience.”
Claudia Love Mair: Storytelling, Contemplation, Lament, Integration
Claudia Love will offer a series of visual expressive arts explorations that invite you to hold your experience of chronic illness and pain with fierce gentleness and see what is revealed by the process.
Dr. Jamie Marich: Storytelling, Lament, Healing, Integration
Trauma comes from the Greek word meaning wound. Whether those wounds are physical, emotional spiritual or exist in some combination, wounds can take a very short time to cause and require a longer, more tender time to heal. Jamie will invite you into the practice of Dancing Mindfulness/mindful movement as an ally in this process of ongoing, tender healing and care.
Melinda Thomas: Storytelling, Contemplation, Lament, Nature
Melinda will offer an invitation to embodied writing. Begin with gentle movement and breathing to promote settling and body awareness, followed by a poetry or journaling prompt, and supported writing time.
Melissa Layer: Storytelling, Contemplation, Healing, Nature
Working expressively with poetry, photography, journaling, collaging and planning a personal mini retreat, Melissa will guide you through exploration opportunities to engage with chronic illness through an expanded (and often surprising!) lens. No experience needed in any of these modalities – simply a willingness to cultivate the wonder of your own curiosity.
Polly Paton-Brown: Lament, Healing, Nature, Integration
Our wounds tell stories and call us into compassionate care for one another.
Our wounds help to illuminate the places where collectively we can do better.
What's Included and Weekly Rhythm of Content
Monday: Live zoom session with Christine
Tuesday-Friday: Guest teacher practices*
Saturday: Reflection questions and blessing
Sunday: Sabbath rest for integration
*Each week four of our guest teachers will offer a daily practice (from Tues-Fri) to invite you to deepen into your journey with chronic illness.
Weekly Themes
Week 1:
Our Wounds Tell Stories
The way we tell our stories matter. Heroic tales of conquering illness leave little room for those of us whose illnesses are ongoing and pain diminishing. Listening to our bodies and giving reverence to their tenderness and vulnerability reveals stories of grace, endurance, loss, and sometimes moments of transformation. This week we will explore the ethics of how we tell our stories and make room for the whole spectrum of experiences with illness.
Week 2:
Contemplation and Resistance
The contemplative path is not just about cultivating inner peace and connecting with the divine. Slowing down our pace of life is a profound act of resistance in a culture that seeks to exploit bodies for profit. We reject the violence of busyness. Creating spaciousness means we have more breathing room to imagine a different world. This week we will explore how contemplative practice helps us to embody an alternative way of being.
Week 3:
Lament and Holding Space for Our Suffering
Suffering demands that we cry out in grief for our suffering and the pain of the world. Often our church communities and wider culture encourage us to bypass our sadness, anger, and rage to maintain the status quo. Lament is an act of resistance and sings out for change to create the beloved community where all beings are free, cherished, and cared for. This week we make room for the necessity of grief and lament in navigating our losses.
Week 4:
What does healing look like?
Healing is not about cure. The promise of cure is often capitalism trying to sell you something. Healing is not quick, but a slow journey of discovery. It is not linear, but an unfolding spiral. It is not a solitary journey, but one with implications for the collective. Those who are chronically ill witness to the ongoing vulnerability of bodies. Limitations remind us of our mortality. Healing calls us back into community where we serve one another out of the compassion our wounds cultivate in us. It means creating systems and structures which support gentleness and flourishing and remembering our original wholeness and the wholeness of all beings. This week we explore images of what healing might look like from the perspective of chronic illness.
Week 5:
Nature as Companion and Witness
The more-than-human world is for many of us a sanctuary place, our relationships with companion animals, with favorite trees or nature spots, a nearby body of water or mountain, can offer us the gift of being seen and held and responded to in ways that nourish us and offer new perspective on our struggles with illness. This week we engage various ways to invite nature in as a companion and witness to our journeys.
Week 6:
Integration
We bring our Lent journey to a close reflecting on the practices we have explored and embodied and noticing what challenged us the most and what brought us solace and inspiration. This final week we gather everything we want to remember and carry it forward with us as nourishment and a source of solace.
Our suffering is not the end of our story but a portal to a deeper alignment with our truest selves.
What's Included
- Six days each week you receive an email with a link to the day’s content. The 7th day is a time for rest and integration. The materials are in written, video, and/or audio format which you can view and listen to at any time.
- A lovingly facilitated forum is also included in this live version of the retreat. Feel free to share what you are discovering with a community of kindred souls.
- We will turn on closed captioning during the live Zoom sessions (which you are able to turn off in your settings if you find distracting) as well as provide a video recording with closed captioning available and a text transcript of the session. Captions and a transcript are available for all video material.
- The program will be recorded for those who pre-register but are unable to attend at the scheduled time or who want to view again. You will be sent a notification when this is ready to view.
- You have lifetime access to all online programs.
Your Guides for the Journey
Christine Valters Paintner
Christine Valters Paintner is the online Abbess and director of AbbeyoftheArts.com, a virtual monastery exploring contemplative practice, creative expression, and ways to nourish an earth-cherishing consciousness. She is a spiritual director, teacher, pilgrimage guide, Benedictine oblate, and author of numerous books on spirituality and the arts. Her deepest belief is that the earth is the original monastery–a wisdom guide and mentor in living a soulful and vibrant life. Visit the “About Christine” page for more information.
Aisling Richmond
Aisling Richmond is a Somatic Therapist and transformative guide who is deeply inspired by nature and the wisdom of the soul. Aisling is currently undertaking a PhD in Psychology and Transformative Leadership to work with cultural change. She shares a home with her partner in the rugged wildness of Donegal, North West Ireland. Aisling works as a therapist, supporting people to resolve trauma and life challenges through body-psyche-soul wisdom. She also mentors people in finding their deep soul purpose, and teaches a rich range of transformative programs online. Aisling is passionate about soul centred living, where nature and the feminine are deeply valued. Having worked collaboratively with many organisations including Amnesty International, Aisling has also been a guest lecturer with both Galway and Limerick Universities. AislingRichmond.com
Claudia Love Mair
Claudia Love Mair, MFA is a writer, artist, and Ringmistress of the Beautiful Soul Circus, a private Facebook group for creatives, queers, and tender souls. She’s an Inspirationalista who, when she’s not creating something herself, helps other creatives tap into their deepest intuition and longings through writing and painting. Claudia is the author of God Alone is Enough, the critically acclaimed novel, Zora and Nicky, and her memoir, Don’t You Fall Now. She is a Certified Intuitive Painting and Expressive Arts Facilitator and the Coordinator for the Kentucky Black Writers Collaborative. Claudia lives in Lexington, with two of her adult children, and three cats, including one who thinks he’s a dog. Her new book Mourning Pages: A Soulful Guide to Writing Through Grief will be released (September 2026) from Broadleaf Books.
Jamie Marich
Jamie Marich, Ph.D., LPCC-S, REAT, RYT-500, RMT travels internationally speaking on topics related to EMDR therapy, trauma, addiction, expressive arts, LGBTQ issues, spirituality and mindfulness while maintaining a private practice in her home base of Northeast Ohio. Jamie is also the developer of the Dancing Mindfulness expressive arts practice. Jamie is the author of several books including Dancing Mindfulness: A Creative Path to Healing and Transformation (2015, with foreword by Christine Valters Paintner) and Process Not Perfection: Expressive Arts Solutions for Trauma Recovery released in 2019, heavily influenced by the growth she has experienced through her study with Abbey of the Arts! Now primarily a North Atlantic Book author, she has recently released Trauma and the 12 Steps: An Inclusive Guide to Recovery (2020), Transforming Trauma with Jiu-Jitsu (2022), and Dissociation Made Simple: A Stigma-Free Guide to Embracing Your Dissociative Mind and Navigating Life (2023). Their newest book is You Lied to Me About God: A Memoir (2024). DrJamieMarich.com
Melinda Thomas
Melinda Thomas, E-RYT 500 is the Program Coordinator for Abbey of the Arts providing program and logistical support, forum facilitation, and yoga. She also offer prayers and other content contributions to the Prayer Cycles and retreats. Melinda is an experienced yoga teacher and has been studying and practicing yoga for more than twenty-five years. In each of her classes and workshops Melinda weaves spiritual and contemplative themes into accessible, alignment based movement practice. Her aim is to honor the spiritual foundation of yoga in conversation with monastic and contemplative wisdom that offers participants a safe, inclusive, and integrated experience. Melinda is a writer and the author of Elements of Being: A Spiritual Memoir in Verse and Sacred Balance: Aligning Body and Spirit Through Yoga and the Benedictine Way. She lives in North Carolina with her son and their cat. She writes The Journal of Elements and Seasons on Substack. MelindaEmilyThomas.com
Melissa Layer
Melissa Layer, MA, LMHC honors the unfolding journeys of our wild and precious lives as compelling invitations for creative, integrative meaning-making in BodyMindSpirit. Her sacred calling and formal training as a psychospiritual therapist, hospice grief counselor, and spiritual director have taught her about the potency of thin places in thresholds and dark nights of the soul. Cultivating curiosity, Melissa offers expressive exploration of the Great Mystery through journaling, collaging, poem-making, dreamwork, visio and lectio divina, creation of rituals and altars, and engaged encounters with nature. Like the honeybee for which she is named, she claims her role as “a bee of the invisible…passionately plundering the honey of the visible in order to gather it in the great golden hive of the invisible” (Rilke). Melissa offers a compassionate, attuned presence and deep listening with the ear of her heart from the Pacific Northwest in Washington, where the Salish sea meets the evergreen forest.
Melissa is available for spiritual companioning through online platforms, phone and written correspondence. Contact her to inquire.
Polly Paton-Brown
Polly Paton-Brown MA UKCP worked for many years as a psychotherapist and trainer in the field of trauma. More recently, Polly’s focus has been on helping people explore their spirituality and prayer, using creativity and connection with nature. Polly has a particular passion for creating healing dolls as a portal to transformation.
Always a lover of nature, horses and creativity Polly now integrates all of these into her practice. She has trained in Nature Based Practice and Eco-pychology, Environmental Arts, Expressive Arts and Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy. She is a licenced facilitator of Chakradance, The Art of Allowing , Creative Awakenings and the Wild Soul Woman Programme. With roots in the contemplative and monastic traditions, Polly also draws wisdom from other spiritual paths such as Druidry and Sufism. She is passionate to help those wounded by the institutional church restore their image of God and themselves. PollyPatonBrown.co.uk Polly writes Wild Soul Calling Substack.
Simon de Voil
Reverend Simon Ruth de Voil is an ordained interfaith-interspiritual minister, sacred musician, spiritual counsellor, and chaplain. His sacred work—both musical and interpersonal—explores themes of the inner landscape of the soul, the enchantment of the natural world, and the healing power of spiritual practice. As a chaplain and counsellor, Simon helps individuals and groups connect sacred presence with everyday life. He’s delighted to be called a stay at home monk and a “trans grandpa” to queer and trans youth. SimondeVoil.com
Simon will lead music during our live, opening session.
Forum Facilitators
Aisling Richmond
See Aisling’s bio above. Polly Paton-Brown
See Polly’s bio above.Aisling Richmond
See Aisling’s bio above.
Spiritual practice is an act of imagination. When we embody particular ways of being, informed by ancient wisdom, we help to create a new world.
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