Your Online Monastery for Your Spiritual Practice

Sacred Artist Interview: Patricia Ariel

I met Patricia Ariel recently online when she left a comment at one of my previous Sacred Artist Interviews. I went to her website link and discovered her beautiful artwork. I love the sensuality and vibrancy of her images which enter the viewer into the mythical realm. I found myself exploring their inner landscape in my imagination and loved the places they took me. As always, I am so grateful to her for taking the time to respond to these questions and offer you, my dear readers, another window into the connection between creativity and spiritual practice. ________________________________________ Are you

May 25, 2009

Art and Spiritual Practice

So have you missed the Abbey this week? I have been on an amazing journey for five days with even more amazing women. We close our time together this morning and then I will head back home to rest and renew and will return to blogging Monday. In the meantime, visit my article on Art and Spiritual Practice at Patheos, a new site offering resources to explore the gifts of different religious traditions.

May 22, 2009

Dare to be Powerful

When I dare to be powerful— to use my strength in the service of my vision— then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. -Audre Lorde We must learn to realize that the love of God seeks us in every situation, and seeks our good. God’s inscrutable love seeks our awakening. True, since this awakening implies a kind of death to our exterior self, we will dread God’s coming in proportion as we are identified with this exterior self and attached to it. But when we understand the dialectic of life and death we will learn to

May 15, 2009

Praying in God

I am feeling in a reflective mood these days. I have been working quite hard lately and over the last several weekends have had a lot of time to interact with some wonderful folks and to create sacred space for retreat. So knowing that next week brings another amazing time of immersion with wonderful folks and creative expression, my inner hermit is asking for some nurture. The news about Tune adds to my desire to just be still with her, to simply relish the unfolding of each moment. At my work with the Ignatian Spirituality Center we offer some programs through

May 14, 2009

The Poet’s Obligation

The Poet’s Obligation To whoever is not listening to the sea this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up in house or office, factory or woman or street or mine or harsh prison cell: to him I come, and, without speaking or looking, I arrive and open the door of his prison, and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent, a great fragment of thunder sets in motion the rumble of the planet and the foam, the raucous rivers of the ocean flood, the star vibrates swiftly in its corona, and the sea is beating, dying and continuing. So, drawn

May 12, 2009

Invitation to Poetry: Guardians of the Threshold

Welcome to Poetry Party Number 35! I select an image and suggest a theme/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

May 11, 2009

Notes from the Abbess

The other day I posted about the great autumn to be found in the midst of spring. We are constantly immersed in the rising and falling of our lives, as close as our own breath. Tune, aka Abbess Petunia (or more commonly, “The Abbess”), will be turning twelve in June. We have had her for nearly two and a half years and what a treasure she continues to be. When we adopted her we thought if all we do is give her the best retirement, then that is enough (after spending her life neglected in a breeding kennel). She is my

May 8, 2009

“You are a ruby embedded in granite”

You were born from a ray of God’s majesty and have the blessings of a good star. Why suffer at the hands of things that don’t exist? Come, return to the root of the root of your Self. You are a ruby embedded in granite. How long will you pretend it’s not true? We can see it in your eyes. Come to the root of the root of your Self. -Rumi, from “The Root of the Root of Your Self” in Love Is a Stranger: Selected Lyric Poetry of Jelaluddin Rumi © Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts: Transformative

May 7, 2009

Abbey Bookshelf: Praying with the Body

Last weekend I attended the Northwest Women’s Convocation which was a pretty amazing event with almost 2000 attendees. There were speakers like Riane Eisler, Ivone Gebara, Edwina Gately, Brian Swimme, and Margaret Wheatley (insights gleaned will be featured here soon). I had an exhibit table next to St. Placid Priory where I am a Benedictine Oblate. They had this wonderful sign up (see above) — how honored I am to have the book I co-wrote with Sister Lucy Wynkoop to be in between Sister Laura Swan’s wise book on Benedictine tradition and Roy DeLeon’s wonderful new book on bringing body prayer

May 6, 2009

In the Midst of Spring . . .

. . . there is also a Great Autumn. What is being released within you to make way for summer’s fruit? © Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts: Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

May 5, 2009

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Sacred Artist Interview: Patricia Ariel

Art and Spiritual Practice

Dare to be Powerful

Praying in God

The Poet’s Obligation

Invitation to Poetry: Guardians of the Threshold

Notes from the Abbess

“You are a ruby embedded in granite”

Abbey Bookshelf: Praying with the Body

In the Midst of Spring . . .

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