Visit the Abbey of the Arts online retreat platform to access your programs:

Login Here

Reflections

Filter

What Came to Me

I am still away on retreat so I offer another re-post of a past reflection on the healing journey I have taken with my father.  If this speaks to your heart at all, consider joining us for our upcoming online retreat Honoring Saints & Ancestors: Peering through the Veil (October 30-November 19, 2011)  Register before October 10th and receive a free gift! What Came to Me 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

Read More
October 3, 2011

Poetry Party winner. . .

Last week’s Poetry Party was another shimmering gathering of poetic beauty.  If you haven’t yet, make sure to stop by and see the offerings.  You are still welcome to share a poem in response to the prompt but it is time for me to announce the winner of the random drawing. . . Genora Powell has won a free registration spot in my upcoming online retreat Honoring Saints & Ancestors: Peering through the Veil (October 30-November 19, 2011).  Contact me with your email address and I will get you registered (or you can gift a friend).

Read More
September 26, 2011

“The Curves of My Longing”

This is a repost of a reflection I wrote for Bliss Chick in the fall of 2009.  I have been studying German again in preparation for a possible sabbatical time in Vienna next year and these words have been shimmering for me: O die Kurven meiner Sehnsucht durch das Weltall” / “O the curves of my longing through the cosmos” -Rainer Maria Rilke, from Uncollected Poems (translated by Edward Snow) My husband and I had been on a five-week ancestral pilgrimage, visiting the landscapes of our genetic roots. We were on the train from Munich to Brussels, after nearly a month

Read More
September 26, 2011

Pause a while at this week’s Poetry Party

Are you in need of a holy pause this week?  A few moments of poetic beauty and refreshment?  Then I encourage you to pour yourself a cup of tea and stop by here to linger over the incredible responses to this week’s prompt about “going home.”  You might be with the poems in a lectio way of reading until a line shimmers for you, than pausing there and letting the word or phrase wash over your being until your heart responds. Then share your own poem because on Sunday, September 25th, I will draw a name at random from the

Read More
September 23, 2011

Autumn: The Season of Paradox

The autumn equinox falls on September 23rd this year—a time when the sun rests above the equator, and day and night are divided equally. It heralds a season filled with change, celebrates the harvest, and ushers in the brilliant beauty of death. Autumn is a season of transition, of continual movement. At the heart of autumn’s gifts are these twin energies of relinquishing and harvesting. It is a season of paradox that invites us to consider what we are called to release and surrender, and at the same time it invites us to gather in the harvest, to name and

Read More
September 22, 2011

Being at Home

I have just returned home to Seattle after two amazing weeks of teaching soul care practitioners how to bring creative expression to their ministries of compassionate presence.  35 spiritual directors gathered in Louisiana and Mississippi for introductory workshops and then another 10 gathered on the shores of beautiful Lake Michgan for our Awakening the Creative Spirit five-day intensive (next one will be May 13-18, 2012 in the Pacific Northwest and they fill up early!)  It is hard to express what a profound privilege it is to be with groups like this, to make safe space for deep inner exploration, to

Read More
September 20, 2011

Invitation to Poetry: Going Home

Welcome to the Abbey’s 53rd Poetry Party! I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your own poem.  Scroll down and add it in the comments section below. 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) On Sunday, September 25th, I will draw a name at random from the participants and the winner will receive

Read More
September 19, 2011

Guest Post at Magpie Girl on “My Spiritual Hybrid”

Rachelle, the wonderful host over at Magpie Girl, seeks to help people find their own right-fit spiritual practice which sometimes means “dancing in the overlap.”  She invited me to write about my own hybird and place of fertile border-crossing between being a monk rooted in Christian tradition and a yogini. Make sure to stop by her post for a chance to win copies of my two newest books – Lectio Divina – transforming words and images into heart-centered prayer and The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom. One of the things I love about yoga is how parallel its principles  are

Read More
August 31, 2011

A new review of Lectio Divina at Spirituality and Practice

The wonderful site Spirituality and Practice offers a review of Lectio Divina: Transforming Words and Images into Heart-Centered Prayer: In this paperback, her focus is on the encounters with God that can take place with the spiritual practice of lectio divina, which means “divine reading.” Paintner states: “[It] is not an analytic or a linear practice, but a practice of the heart that brings integration and meaning to our lives.” . . . Paintner makes an excellent guide through the foundational spiritual practice of lectio divina. Click here to read the whole review>>

Read More
August 30, 2011

A review of The Artist’s Rule at Through a Glass Onion

As part of the Patheos Book Club, Through a Glass Onion has posted a great review of The Artist’s Rule: Paintner’s book is written as a 12-week journey that shares the wisdom of monastic practice, especially Benedictine—of which Paintner is an oblate. It is a book meant to be read as part of one’s creative journey. The difficulty in reviewing Paintner’s book is that I didn’t have twelve weeks to sit with it, absorb it, learn from it, and put it into practice. In fact, I didn’t even have twelve days. But, I didn’t need twelve days, weeks, or months to find

Read More
August 30, 2011