Your Online Monastery for Your Spiritual Practice

Travel to Chiapas for Art & Spirit

This trip sounds amazing and I would be signing up if it didn’t conflict with a major event I coordinate for one of my jobs. So I am encouraging any of you who might be interested in traveling with a group of pilgrims for an experience that is sure to be filled with creative inspiration and spiritual depth: One Equal Heart Foundation and the Grünewald Guild are co-sponsoring a trip to Chiapas, Mexico, March 6-21, 2010, for artists and people interested in exploring creativity and spirituality in this rich and ancient place. We will have two wonderful women artists accompany

September 16, 2009

Celebrate with Me!

I just hit the “SEND” button to deliver our manuscript to the Publisher right on time. Awakening the Creative Spirit: Bringing the Arts to Spiritual Direction (co-authored with Betsey Beckman) is scheduled for publication in early February 2010 by Morehouse (SDI Imprint Series). More details to come! For right now I am just going to celebrate the completion of this phase of hard, hard work and what has been a labor of utter love and passion. (oh and now to get some of my other work done . . .)

September 15, 2009

Let Art Offer Both Joy and Solace

Two Visual Meditation Reprises for this day: The first, Happy Birthday to my dear friend, this one is for you. The second, in loving memory of the terrible loss of 8 years ago.

September 11, 2009

Mothers and Grandmothers

“And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see—or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.” -Alice Walker, from In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens Last week I shared an encounter which made me wistful for my mother (pictured at right as a young girl). It was her birthday last week and I still miss her terribly six years after her death. I have come to embrace this ache as a beautiful sign of how much I loved her,

September 8, 2009

Monastic Wisdom

A monastery can never be merely an escape from the world. Its very purpose is to enable us to face the problems of the world at their deepest level, that is to say, in relation to God and eternal life. Everything in the monastic life down to the deepest level has to be viewed from this angle. –Bede Griffiths, The Golden String: An Autobiography The real monastic walks through life with a barefooted soul, alert, aware, grateful, and only partially at home. -Joan Chittister, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today

September 8, 2009

Visual Meditation: The Sea’s Edge

Photos taken at Golden Gardens beach in Seattle. Photos © Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts: Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

September 6, 2009

To my Beloved

Happy 15th Anniversary my Love! Take it away Pablo . . . ______ Don’t go far off, not even for a day, because — because — I don’t know how to say it: a day is long and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep. Don’t leave me, even for an hour, because then the little drops of anguish will all run together, the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift into me, choking my lost heart. Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the

September 3, 2009

“In your light. . .”

In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art. -Rumi Monday night I went to the cemetery to meet my friend and writing/teaching partner Betsey Beckman who has created a video of her Mary Magdalene storydance (will be available early 2010). She had asked me to come film some still shots of her for the cover. I absolutely love cemeteries and am used to having strange and serendipitidous encounters there. As we finished shooting,

September 2, 2009

Invitation to Poetry: Moments

Welcome to our 39th Poetry Party! I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. Add them in the comments section and a link to your blog (if you have one). 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

August 31, 2009

“Today is such a day”

On a day when the wind is perfect, the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty. Today is such a day. -Rumi ** Our next Poetry Party will be on Monday! ** © Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts: Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

August 30, 2009

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Travel to Chiapas for Art & Spirit

Celebrate with Me!

Let Art Offer Both Joy and Solace

Mothers and Grandmothers

Monastic Wisdom

Visual Meditation: The Sea’s Edge

To my Beloved

“In your light. . .”

Invitation to Poetry: Moments

“Today is such a day”

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